Just write

I reached the halfway mark. Over 25k words written so far this month. The novel is taking on a life of its own, each conversation leading my characters on a path I hadn't expected. That's the true beauty of crafting a novel. You're really just the conduit. The words move through you, creating their own story. The end result is always a beautiful surprise.

It's one of the reasons I love NaNoWriMo so much. The strict word count goal forces you to write without overthinking, pushing the edits off until you have a complete first draft. It gives the story a chance to evolve without my overly analytical mind dissecting each sentence to death.

Sure, it's a challenge. 50k in a month seems like an unattainable goal, especially on that first day, when your word count sits at a pathetic 1667. 50k seems so far away then, but each day brings you closer and closer, until you find yourself on day thirteen, looking 30k right in the face. Then, the end goal doesn't seem so far away. You can begin to see it on the horizon, looming just out of your reach.

And the story! By now, your characters have personalities, dreams, goals, and habits, either good or bad. Relationships have been built or broken. Some may have even met an untimely literary end, but they all seem so real. You begin to write scenes while you're in the shower or cooking breakfast or sitting at a traffic light. The flow of words, now started, never lets up. You become that crazy person in the grocery store, talking to yourself as you work through a bit of tricky dialogue.

It's easy to lose sight of the thrill that comes with crafting a new novel. Edits and query letters can drain the fun out of writing, but you can always find it again. Just sit down and write.