Only three more weeks until Kevin dusts off his halo and dons his “I’m a lover, not a writer” t-shirt in support of my annual journey through the Sumatra-colored underworld that is National Novel Writing Month.
This will be my third year doing Nanowrimo. I can say with equal parts pride and humility that though I “won” the last two Nanos, pounding out 50K words in 30 days, it is my opinion that thus assembled, they only vaguely resemble a novel.
But luckily producing publishable prose is not the point of Nano. It’s all about bragging rights. On your death bed, you get to say you wrote a novel and cross at least one thing off the bucket list. It’s also a wonderful exercise in exorcising the Inner Critic. For one month a year, you have permission to tell the AntiMuse to fuck directly off, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Which is not to say it’s not hard. It is. I really bloody is. By the end of November, my ass is two centimeters flatter and wider, my eyeballs feel like dirty sandpaper, and my fingertips are as smooth and red as a baby’s proverbial bottom. My brain is weary of daily internal battles with my Evil Twin. But, as Kevin so wisely and infuriatingly told me the first year, it’s the hard that makes it great.
Thus as I prepare mentally and physically for this year’s grueling event, I ponder its most important decision: Which brag badge should I use when I update Rib readers of my progress or lack thereof?
I love the design this year, but I can’t decide on the color. Would the orange one clash with my beloved red? Does this shade of blue make me look fat?
Technorati Tags: National Novel Writing Month, writing
If you do this you deserve to pick whichever fricking color you want!
I have a friend who’s done it twice and she thought most of what she wrote sucked, but she had so many words that at least some of them were good. It’s a great exercise in just making you write!
Go for it!
Go for it I shall, Maureen. For me, Nano is like a Siren, singing me out to sea and over the side of the boat into the raw-smelling water. I flail around for days until I glimpse land and start to swim. By the time I’m staggering back up the shore, worn out and prune-faced, I’m already missing her song.