NaNoWriMo and me

It's November -- how's  your novel coming along?  If the answer is, you don't have a novel, you don't plan to have a novel, or what's a novel? that's good.  Your sanity may still be intact.  If the answer is, only 49,999 words to go, hope your health insurance covers psychiatric care for deranged and delusional writers.  Because for those of you who missed it, on November 1, in the hullabaloo between Halloween, the World Series and elections, National Novel Writing Month began.  And this year I'm there.

NaNoWriMo to its enthusiasts (pronounced "neh-noh-rye-moh"), an acronym strangely similar to the "nah-noo nah-noo" greeting from a 1970's era comedy, is a project intended to prompt otherwise normal people to write a novel within a single thiry-day period, the month of November.  Despite the name, the point is not exactly to write a whole novel.  It's just to write a 50,000-word first draft of a novel.  To force those of you who insist you could write a novel but you just don't have the time, to put up or shut up.  Because, while you may not have the months or years it takes to write a completed, many times revised novel, surely, brother, you can spare thirty days.  Except the organizers of NaNoWriMo, cunning as they are,  know that once you've written 50,000 words or a novel, once you've written an entire first draft with a beginning, middle and end, it becomes a beast almost impossible not to take further.  I know.  I'm currently revising a novel, just not one begun during NaNoWriMo.  And I'm taking a break from it to push through another novel.  Maybe I'll come back to the old one with fresh eyes.  Maybe I'll be able to get into revision mode on the new one.  Maybe I'll just be able to say, I did NaNoWriMo.

If you think you're up to some November insanity, see http://www.nanowrimo.org/ for more particulars.  It's not to late.  But please excuse me now.  I've still got 48,090 words to go.  Signing off -- nah-noo nah-noo.