Aaaaand, I'm certifiable

Last night in my blogging around and tears I ran across a bizarre acronym that meant a totally different thing than the thing I thought of. And it suddenly dawned on me that NaNoWriMo is this month.

It occurred to me, last week?, maybe to consider giving it a shot. And then I realized with a psychotic cyclone I'm currently living in (my last 3 posts aside, life is nuts right now) and i thought I'd be crazy to add it.

Last night I thought, why not? And then blogged the mess that all started with Three Rivers and Alex O'Laughlin. And thought, you'd be nuts!

Then today at lunch it dawned on me again. And I thought "I can't finish the novel I have in my head. Not the one I have started. About Claire. Not the excerpt I gave my blog readers. I can't finish that novel, it's too close to my heart and I really want to write Claire well. " So, as I was running an errand at lunch I pondered

"What kind of story would i like to read?? What stories are missing??"

And I met Neil. In my mind, mind you, not in real life. And I had an idea, and went home and started scribbling. And I am certain it will be infinitely harder than I imagine. But I'm also hoping it'll be infinitely more rewarding than I imagine.

And if you are absolutely completely and utterly out of the loop. Here is the website for NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month. And people all over the world sign up on that site and track their novels and share their progress and get help etc whatever, I'm not entirely sure. But I read the pep talk #1 and before I even made it past point #1 i was hooked.

1) Your novel will not be as bad as you fear. In fact, by November 30 you will have amassed tens of thousands of words of very solid prose. You will come up with things that make you laugh so hard you have to wipe off the keyboard afterwards, and passages so moving that you will cry as you write them. Your plot will unexpectedly give birth to fantastic subplots, characters will reveal surprising and juicy things about themselves, and you'll have some moments during NaNoWriMo that will rank among the most satisfying and happy-making of your life

At which point I realize I am supposed to amass 50,000 words by the end of the month. And I put in the half a paragraph I scribbled at lunch. I have 68 words right now. But, I'm going to give it (my) ol' college try and see what I have in December. I'm mostly going to write it long-hand because I get hung up by other distractions on the computer. (stupid facebook). But I'm going to give it a shot.

Here we go Neil!!!

Then I started browsing the site to see if there were any things I ought to be doing to keep up. And I run across this page here. And #4 says:
4) Begin procrastinating by reading through all the great advice and funny stories in the forums. Post some stories and questions of your own. Get excited. Get nervous. Try to rope someone else into doing this with you. Eat lots of chocolate and stockpile noveling rewards.

And I giggle. Because although I'm not technically yet procrastinating, I am reading through the pages. I am posting a few bits on my profile. I am already excited and equally nervous. And have already tried roping one friend into it and have two other friends (Lori? Sarah?) I'm wondering if will join me or not. Chocolate is currently on my counter waiting to be consumed. And I am now considering noveling rewards. Suggestions??

And Now I'm going to post this. New Facebook status. Wash face. Consume cake. Write a bit. and to Bed. clearly not before 11.