Self-serving non-link update

I just wanted to warn you guys (all eight of you who read this blog) that my posts might be a little sparse for the next few weeks. In keeping with my five-years-behind-the-curve tendencies, I'm finally participating in National Novel Writing Month.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel between the first and last days of November. That means you need to crank out an average of 1,667 words a day. Fortunately, they don't all have to make sense. NaNoWriMo strikes me as a fascinating exercise in self-discipline, in committing to writing something every day, whether or not it's any good.

I'm honestly not that great at writing off the top of my head. I'm intimidated as hell by a completely blank page. To use a rather insipid pottery metaphor, once there's some clay on the wheel, I like to think I'm pretty good at shaping it, but I have the hardest damn time getting the clay onto the wheel in the first place. (You'll notice that every single post on here is in reaction to something: an annoying celebrity, a mortifying reality show, my awful cat. That's all borrowed clay.)

I also tend to re-shape the clay even as I'm attempting to throw it on the wheel, which is just counterproductive (and messy). This is classic perfectionist behavior and I know it's holding me back as a writer, so I imagine there will come a point in this exercise where I finally give myself permission to write utter crap (like that's ever stopped me before -- rimshot!). I'll be very interested to see what happens after I stop searching for the perfect word and just keep on writing.

I mean, it's not like I'm setting out to write The Great American Novel here. (And you'll notice the enterprise isn't called National Good Novel Writing Month.) I'm attempting to write a murder mystery set at the computer game company I used to work at in Austin, Texas, in the late 90s. It's gonna be one of those cute mysteries with an amateur sleuth that's pretty much based on me. The tentative title is "The Corpse Wore Bunny Slippers." Clearly, the bar is set pretty low, but I'm still nervous that I won't meet some nebulous expectation of success.

So I'm hoping that over the course of this month, I'll learn to embrace the NaNoWriMo philosophy that success is the simple act of putting words together, period. I also hope that you all will bear with me. Or join me; if the exercise I've just described sounds like something you'd like to do, by all means, sign up at the NaNoWriMo site. And please wish me luck. Thanks.

Comments

[Cheesemeister]

Excellent! Good luck to you!

[Felicia]

You go grill!

[mojosdaddy]

The cats and i wanted to say..."meow" .... which i think means, good luck and we're all very proud of you, even Emily.

[SueBee]

Hey girl, you're finally taking all those requests for a novel seriously! Lelu, Edwierdo & I anxiously await the bunnyslipper-wearing corpse. Your avoidance of too-scary-things and general gore will encourage our reading of it as well. Do not allow the blog to suck out all your sarcastic & biting wit. The blog, she is transitory, the novel is eternal.---Rock the Pen!