NaNoWriMo is Devouring My Brain!

. . . but that's a good thing, I think!

Aside from the slackerish blogging for the last few days.

For those of you who don't know anything about the wonderful-ness that is National Novel Writer's Month, it is a 30 day period (the month of November) in which thoroughly insane lunatics creative geniuses attempt to do the impossible write an entire novel (at least 50,000 words)!



To back up just a little bit, I have been thinking about writing a novel for a long, long time. There has always been a part of me that has believed that I am supposed to be a writer. Maybe I watched Little Women and the Anne of Green Gables movies a few too many times, maybe it's the fact that I'm completely addicted to reading everything that doesn't read me first (lol), but I've just always thought that I was meant to do it. About 6 months ago I began pursuing it pretty seriously - I read everything I could get my hands on about how to write a novel, how to plan to write a novel, how to think about planning to write a novel. But that's all the farther I got. I dabbled with a story idea and wrote a couple of scenes that didn't fit together, but I chickened out.

I think there was some kind of deep-seated fear that if I didn't do it perfectly the first time, there would be no second time and I would have utterly failed at my life's "purpose." Then along came NaNoWriMo - I don't even remember how I first heard of it, but I went to the website and started reading about it, and I knew that I had to do it. Because, if I can accomplish this I will learn three things: 1) I will know that I am capable of writing a lot of words in a short amount of time, 2) I will know if I enjoy writing any words in any amount of time, 3) I will know if anything I can write is coherent and/or interesting enough to be read by anyone else. If I learn these three things I will know for certain whether or not I am truly meant to do this!

That, and I'm always up for a challenge!

All of this to say, I may be a little scarce during the month of November, but I'll still be around! I'll also be twittering my daily word count, and I may post excerpts from time to time (if they're at all presentable). (Word Count Goal Calendar)

If any of you are joining in the madness fun, let me know so we can cheer each other on!

Thanks for reading!