To NaNo or Not to NaNo

So, this week I have the following I would like to do:

-- Finish my drawings for MAX and mrcaex
-- Finish Winry Rockbell, Martian Space Pilot! (a Fullmetal Alchemist AU) for scifibigbang
-- Put together two Halloween costumes. I'm going as the Virgo Cluster as a Museum of the Earth volunteer and as Tetra from Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for CJAS's Halloween party. I might also repair my Amelia costume for CJAS Costume'd Kareoke on Friday.
-- Clean my apartment.
-- Help with some RPG stuff and get my activity for the Museum event ready.

Work is slow, and the thing I really need to do there (besides grading) is sit down with my adviser and have a 'Let us plan where I go next so I can get my PhD in a timely fashion'. He's out of town for Tuesday and Wednesday, so I could get away with taking that time off for home (and grading) if I finish everything in my office tomorrow.

Next month, I'll haveyuletide and yuletart, doing some art for scifibigbang, and slayers_request. Plus, finishing Christmas gifts and ag_over_18 will probably do a Secret Santa.

I wonder if maybe I should take a break from NaNo and maybe just do something like mekosuchinae is doing -- pledge to write every one of the 31_days prompts, which still gets me writing, but lets me work on other projects. Plus, I have one unfinished NaNo already, that doesn't suck and isn't fanfic. (I have three in total: the one that needs massive editing to salvage (if it can), the fanfic which needs its third part, and the one that really just needs a second half and some editing.)

But, that does kind of make me feel left out, since I really like the NaNo community. I like going to write-ins and such, and it would break my winning streak. But on the other hand, I don't want to win just for the sake of 50,000 words and a cute banner and certificate. I want to turn some of my scribbles into things other people can read. (Well, they can read them now, but it would make me cringe.)

And doing scifibigbang is making me realize that my writing has gotten somewhat more stable -- in that, a lot of my older writing from several years ago doesn't look like it sucks. For a while, I was improving fast enough that reading my old writing was painful. Now it looks like a lot of my drafting skills are stable enough that drafts look good when I re-read them, even years later. Which might mean I need to take more risks and start editing to see if I can improve myself more.