NaNoWriMo

"Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door."
~ Emily Dickinson

We're closing in on November, better known to those of my ilk as "National Novel Writing Month" or NaNoWriMo.

Taken from "What is NaNoWriMo?":

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

From what I gather, NaNaWriMo is a virtual Woodstock for budding novelists. Although I tend towards wanting to work on my own, even the lone wolf in me is getting swept up in the nervous energy abuzz as many of my friends prepare to embark on this journey.

Some are seeking adventure.
Some are seeking knowledge.
Some want to shit or get off of the pot.
Some want to know if they have it in them.
Some want to accomplish this so they can believe in themselves again.
Some are participating because they want to be a part of something larger than themselves.

I will be participating for all of those reasons.

I did not make the decision to participate lightly. I've let myself down too many times in my lifetime to take this plunge as an innocent. I have struggled in recent years to scrape and crawl my way out of the garbage heap that is the result of the accumulation of my broken promises to myself. As of late, instead of setting myself up to fail, I've been positioning myself for success. I've been taking baby steps. Completing projects. Doing the right thing for the right person at the right time.

And to be honest, I don't want to spend any more time at the bottom of that trash heap. I don't belong there.

But we're talking about writing six pages per day, every day, for thirty days. Yes, it's expected to be and allowed to be pure crap, but I'm a self-loathing perfectionist by nature. I only hope I will allow myself to plod towards the prize at a winning and sustainable pace instead of nailing myself to a tree at each crossroads, every hesitation and second guess.

And this isn't just writing, it's fiction writing. I don't know if I have a storyteller in me. I can relate ideas and feelings as is natural to me, but I don't know if I've spent enough time on right-brain activities to stoke my long-dormant imagination into a panting, at-the-ready state.

No, I'm not ready for this. Not at all.

And I don't know how to write a novel. How the heck does one write a novel? I will just have to have faith that it is possible to learn in the doing. This is the way I learn best. I need to trust that this intensive immersion approach will suit me and that the impending opening of my mind will allow light to be cast on the doubts and unknowns that have kept me in the shadows with them for decades.

But what of my blog? Certainly I won't have time to blog as well. What happens to my blog during that month? My refuge? And will you, a valued reader and participator in my journey, finally make like a tree and leave?

I hope you will stick with me and stand by my side during the month of November. Your encouragement and good wishes will be like mana for what will surely become my increasingly neurotic sensibilities. I will post when I can, although my offerings may be in the form of a simple photograph to depict my state of mind, or a link to something silly I came across that I thought you might like.

This week I must attend to the nasty business of plotting my novel and losing sleep in the process. No premise thus devised in these late night brainstorming sessions appeals to me as a worthy contender, an interesting enough platform upon which to entertain what I hope will be my future readers.

But I will come up with something. I will. I'm going to do this, dammit. I will break the tape.

Image Source: James Jordan's Flickr