NaNoWriMo – or “What the freak was I thinking?!!”

I’ve buckled under Gonty’s enormous and relentless pressure, and signed up for NaNoWriMo.

To test myself out, I sat down this morning and fired up Jer’s Novel Writer and dumped some thoughts – here’s what I wrote.

So, here I am in wordsville. Watching, waiting, wondering what the freak I have gotten myself into. Of course, I’m not ‘in’ anything. I signed up, that’s all. There’s no commitment, no outlay that holds me here. Barely even any community to push me. The only known community is my brother Gonty, and he’s probably got more excuses than I do.

I’ve got my own set of excuses: from the obvious “I have an 8 week old baby, a 2 year old boy, a full time job, and a house to maintain – I have no time to write”, through the uninspired “I have nothing to write about” (potentially a nihillistic solution presents itself there?), to the physiological “I can’t write or read on the train (my only quiet time in a day) as it makes me quite ill”.

So where do I expect to find the time to write 50,000 words in a month? A short novel? One thousand, six hundred and sixty seven words every day for 30 days straight!?

To be honest – I don’t. I’m here because I wish I could write. I have a secret desire to be a writer, even though I kinda suck at anything large-scale, and don’t read anywhere near enough to be a considered and well opinioned author. I’m here maybe to ‘give myself permission to have ideas’, maybe to try to start something. Maybe to force myself to try. Try to manufacture some momentum.

By the way – is there a NaNoEdiMo?

(Dang it, that’s only just over 250 words. I need to do that much writing 7 times a day….)

Wish me luck (and don’t be too hard on me if I don’t make it, or my novel sucks.