Going Off The Rails...

I keep staring at my calendar with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. NaNoWriMo is upon us, and this is my first rodeo. Just the phrase "50,000 words in 30 days" is enough to make anyone do their best Keanu Reeves impression (which really doesn't take much, let's just be honest): Whoa.


The word count minimum is enough to make anyone pale, though in the scheme of things it's really not nothing at all. When I write, I tend to be my own personal task master. I demand an absolute minimum of 500 words per writing session, but I honestly shoot for 1,000+. Nothing makes me happier than to be able to tell my husband, as soon as he walks in the door, my word count for the day. It just gives me the warm fuzzies.


So, 50,000 words isn't all that intimidating. The discipline that it's going to take to get in in 30 days, however, most definitely is. And while we're at it, let's throw in a lovely little curve ball. I won't be writing on Saturdays. Now it's 50,000 words in 26 days. Oh look, here comes the crazy train! Here's another little curve ball- why the hell not? I intend on producing a complete first draft novel.


 Let's recap: 26 days. Minimum 50,000 words. Complete draft.

All aboard! Feel free to start humming some Ozzy any time now. I'll even join in.


Ernest Hemingway said: "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.". I have this quote, along with several others, tacked up on the cork board next to my desk, and I've never heard a truer statement. While writers don't literally bleed while they work (at least I sincerely hope not- very sincerely I might add), we bleed in other ways. Remember my previous post about a writer's soul being on a piece of paper? There ya go. But, I digress.


All stories are a part of the writer who created them. Sometimes it's difficult to get everything out, sometimes it's downright scary. I have several stories floating around in this little noggin of mine, and in a few days I'm going to begin the process of ripping one of them from the recesses of my mind, and pulling it down into my fingertips so that they can appear on the computer screen in front of me in glaring black and white. That's the tricky thing about writing. In your mind everything is so colorful and surreal, and then you have to translate it into colorless symbols that will, hopefully, grow back into their colorful origins in someone else's mind.


That whole concept is daunting to say the least. But, despite all of my fear and trepidation, I feel strangely ready for this. I'm looking at NaNoWriMo like an adventure, actually scratch that. This is a challenge. I actually like a challenge.

One thing that people don't realize about me, most likely because I'm a quiet person, is that I can be quite competitive and if someone says that I can't do something my immediate reaction is to prove them wrong. Though no one has poo-pooed my writing, well at least not those who really know me, I feel as though I have something to prove. I intend on doing just that, and not just with my NaNoWriMo novel but with my other novel as well. Proof that,contrary to some people's belief, that I don't sit about twiddling my thumbs. Proof that I am worth something.


I suppose that I ought to step off my soapbox, for a little bit at least. I'm sure you all would appreciate it.


All of this was really to say that the crunch time countdown to NaNoWriMo has begun. I think it's time to start polishing my armor and get out my war paint (other than what I wear on a near daily basis anyways). November is going to be a damn good time.


Aimee
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