Who Needs Deadlines?

So, it's December, and I missed the November 30th deadline for National Novel Writing Month. However, I can't be too sad, because: a) I am more than half-way done with it, and b) rather than writing I was spending quality time with my family over Thanksgiving. (There were some truly epic rounds of Rock Band to attend to...)

I am still going to finish said novel -- it has yet to be named -- and I have set myself a personal goal to be done with it by the end of the month, and thus the end of the year. 2009 will be the year I wrote a novel, and no matter what happens with it after that, I'll have succeeded.

Some things I have learned thus far:

1. 50,000 is a hell of a lot of words.

2. 30 is not very many days.

3. "Writing what you know" as writers are so often counseled to do is vastly easier said than done, I think. I have been so worried that what I'm writing sounds too close to a real person, place or thing that it won't count as fiction, and what if someone reads this and gets upset, and blah, blah, blah, that I've hamstrung myself a bit. Frustrating, to say the least. Am I the only one who struggles with this?

4. I can't think about who is going to potentially be reading this novel when it is done, especially my mother, because it makes me censor myself. It's not that what I'm writing is porn-y, but, you know, some words and thoughts just don't come easy when you think "My mom might read this..."

5. I just need to turn myself off, if you will, and write.