Update

14,651 words.  And a confession:
I'm cheating.  Most of what I have so far I wrote before now.  So no, I haven't been pounding out 5000 plus words a day.  I've been editing mostly, adding a few words here or a sentence there, reacquainting myself with my characters and plot from the extensive notes from before.

But, as a friend recently pointed out to me, they are still my words.  It's not like I copied them from someone else and am cheating for real (like with plagiarism).  No, this is my story.  Did I come up with it on the spot on November 1st?  No.  I had it fleshed out in my mind well before now.

But according to the rules of NaNoWriMo there's nothing wrong with note taking and brainstorming and plot landscaping before November.  So my notes are more like finished chapters than scattered ideas.  So what?  They're still my words, my prose on the page.  And very shortly I'll be entering into unknown territory when the previously written material runs out.  (Like a few more paragraphs very shortly!)  And then I'll be on my own, heading off into the dark, uncharted space of my imagination with nothing more than a vague roadmap of where I think (and hope) my plot is going to head and a bunch of characters crazy enough to tear up that map and get totally lost out there.

So you know what?  I'll take the head start even if it is bending the rules a bit.  I'll need it when everyone gets lost in the dark.  Here we go...