On Your Mark

I did it. I thought about it last year, but I didn't do it. I wanted to...

I signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo this year!!!!

For those of you who are sitting there scratching your heads and wondering why I suddenly started talking like Mork from Ork, here is an explanation.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 50,000 words (or more) between November 1st and November 30th. You can sign up and get a little meter thingy to track your words, you can make a donation (check out the website, seriously) to help support the contest, to support the one for young writers and you can use your donation to "buy" packages of commemorative items. I want a wall poster to hang in my computer room as inspiration...

Last year, I followed several writers who have "writing blogs" somewhat enviously. I have ALWAYS wanted to write (a novel, a short story, a screenplay - anything but poetry) but I never seem to have the time. There is always something going on.

For instance, this November: At work I will be preparing for the December Pledge Drive, which actually starts the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year. There is a lot of time and effort that goes into a successful pledge drive. I will be expected to come up with special on air promotions for the drive and for the holiday season. Plus whatever else comes up. At home - well, home improvement is an ongoing thing. There is Christmas shopping (thank goodness for online - I'm gonna try to do it all that way this year), food and cleaning preparation for family stuff, an actual holiday, my son having time off from school - and all of this in addition to the regular, everyday stuff that has to be done.

The lack of time has always been my excuse. But I don't have time to exercise either, and somehow I am managing to carve out a little time every couple of days to do that. Surely I can carve out a little more to sit down and write on a novel... My posts to blogworld may get sparse (if I'm posting all the time - yell at me! That means I'm not doing the other writing I should be doing), but I'll keep you all updated on my life, how things are going... you know - the usual!

My husband wants to do it too. We may wind up fighting over the computer, though he says he can work on it when I'm not using it. I'm not sure how that part's going to work out. Might be a good excuse to go buy a laptop...

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish this year. Writing was one of them. I can just squeeze it in.