It's that time of year again! The time where I dive belly-first in to the sea of gelatinous words and phrases with my thread and needle and do whatever I can to string them together in the length of 50,000 as they squirm and writhe and generally want to misbehave.
I fret over this time period coming up because it is so stressful, because I know I'll disappear and my family will wonder if I'm still alive. Meals go uncooked, laundry goes undone, and in general I count on the good will of the world to let me get by on minimal effort as I attempt to Create Fiction.
I love this. I love realizing you've been writing for an hour and have another 1,000 words in front of you that didn't exist in that order anywhere else in history. I love the birthing of a world amid growing cups of half finished cold coffee and snacks and cathair. And I love feeling as if it's possible that this story might be the one that convinces me I could do this more often. For a living, in fact.
I have two stories fighting. The one I originally thought I was going to write, and now the one I currently AM writing. It's an old idea, 2 years stewing in my head, and it rudely shoved itself to the forefront and demanding I set it down. So here we go! In the meantime the other story would make a nice teen story and if I can get the details written down fast enough, maybe I'll write that one next. Who knows.
There is nothing like the thrill of watching the word count meter go up on the NaNo website. And nothing like turning in your final count at the end of the month and seeing YOU WON across the top of the screen.
I live for this kind of personal challenge. It's probably the only one I have left. I was so worried before about doing this during school AND work, but I managed it last year and won. My husband will just hide and play video games to get away from my cranky ass like last time and we'll weather the storm.
I can't wait to see what gets created this year.