Red Nose

Sure, Why Not?

Even though it was Sunday, I went down to the cafe in my office building to spend some time with a buncha nuts. There were men and women, young and old, conservative and liberal, wacky and serious. I saw some familiar faces, folks I hadn't seen in -- oh God -- two! years, met some new folks, chatted and laughed.

Only one event can conjure up such a mixed bag of people: NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month.

One of the DC Municipal Liaisons is the lovely and talented Chuck, shown here giving the Official Kick-Off Speech and pointing out the importance of keeping one's ears clean. (Okay, maybe not that last bit. But he did welcome everyone!)

You may remember that I have not been particularly successful at this mad endeavor for the last two years. In 2007, I gave up about two-thirds of the way through the month after writing a lot of words that I hated. Last year, I found myself on day 9 with 0 words and realized that it was just not going to happen.

But you know, I also finished the challenge five times. So what the hell, I'm in again!

Now I just need to figure out what to write. Any ideas?

Delaying Tactics

For 10 days now I have been saying, "I will start NaNoWriMo today! I will hunker down and write and write and write and catch up and surpass and finish in a blaze of glory!"

Well, not so much. Actually, not at all.

But I have finally gotten the checkbook up to date and the bills organized and the most important ones paid on time.

But I have visited Mom and listened to her odd phone calls and refused to let her pick a fight with me and taken her to lunch and told her I love her.

But I have cleaned the crap off the kitchen table and thrown out all of the expired vitamins and supplements and medicines and watered the African violet (which actually has blooms -- it seems to be thriving under my plant-care system of "wait until the leaves are really droopy and then add water") and sorted through the pile of mail and catalogs and magazines.

But I have bought a cable splitter and hooked up my wee bedroom TV to the cable and so now I don't have to buy a digital converter box and have a lot more channels. (Maybe that's not such a good thing...)

But I have attended a lovely birthday party and my exercise class and a hockey game (which we won! Against the Hurricanes in the last 10 seconds!).

So I don't feel too bad about it, because I will start NaNoWriMo tomorrow! And write and write and write! And finish in a blaze of glory!

Maybe.

Year Five: It's A Go

I seriously considering skipping NaNoWriMo this year. Whenever I thought about it, or read another email from the NaNoWriters Yahoo! group, or looked at the dust-covered binder containing the still-unfinished neverending sequel, I filled up with a lot of eehh.

So I figured that I might as well skip it this year.

But in the last week I got excited again. A little idea popped into my head for a very thoughtful, sort of dark and brooding story -- one that might even be considered (dare I say it?) Litahrahry Fiction. The idea simmered a little bit and I mentioned it to Joe.

He said, "Can you say 'catharsis'?"

All of a sudden the idea, which had been this bitter little ball, exploded into a big old slapstick comedy. Much more like it! Of course, I still don't know how it's all going to play out, because that, my friends, is how I roll. However, I do know that wheelchair races and high-stakes Bingo will be featured.

Now I'm looking forward to the madness. I went to two kickoff parties this weekend, one for Maryland and one for DC, and gabbed with friendly folks from previous years and folks who are just now dipping a toe into the tub. I talked about my idea and got even more jazzed up.

So what the heck. I will attend write-ins. I will unearth my spreadsheet. I may even blog it.

But most of all, for the fifth year in a row, I will write.