It's That Time of Year! National Novel Writing Month.
And it's so much fun!
Imagine having thousands of writers from all over the world to chat with about anything from genre jumping to 'my butt is killing me' and what day is it? Today, a Nano-London participant offered to mail me a slew of clean socks for the month.
It's true I am a retard when it comes to remembering to change my socks or put shoes on to walk outside and check the mail. But when a 3k word count is staring me down and the bunnies need hay, the coffee is nearing a dangerous low and I still smell like chlorine from yesterday's swim, clean socks are the last thing on my mind.
This charming Londoner made it clear her intentions were not altruistic. In her view, it's an investment. "When you become famous, you can send me a lifetime of clean socks." It's truly energizing to suffer this rip roaring writing marathon with thousand of other crazies in the world... intent upon writing 50k words in a month. That's approximately a 240 page novel. I'm on page 55. If I write 1,500-2,000 words from now until the end of November, I'll get there.
But there's this: I fell behind last year due to work, travel, bla bla bla and never caught up. Why go through this potential outcome again? Won't the novel be terrible written so fast? Well, call me stubborn, but this month I intend to find that out first hand (fingers and keys).
If I quit this year, I quit publicly as per this blog post. And, I will gladly bury my shame in the unconditional fluffy love of my bunnies and those friends who patiently trust in the power of persistence.
By the way, I love this inspiring story about a writer who's novel came out of National Novel Writers Month: The novel, The Night Circus written by the lovely charming author Erin Morgenstern was written in the same stubborn and curious tumblings as my own. She quit the first year. She finished the second. She found herself bored at some point while writing the novel and took her characters to the circus. It worked, a whole new direction was found in the forcing of words on the page. She found her novel by writing into it. Double Day picked it up and the rest is history.
