NaNoed!

Hey there, cats and kittens!  It's November, and you know what that means alllll across the writing community:

NANOWRIMO!

For those of you who don't know, every November is Na(tional) No(vel) Wri(ting) Mo(nth.)  The rules are simple:

30 days.

50,000 words.

Now, a lot of people, including some professional writers, like to pooh-pooh NaNo.  "Every month is novel writing month for me," they'll sometimes say or, "50,000 words isn't really a novel," or "writing isn't a competition."  It's all well and good if you can't or don't wish to participate.  Hey, people have shit to do, and not everyone can wrap up all of their business on October 31 and dive into a month of writing.  Hell, I spent the last two weekends in a mega-marathon of editing to try to knock some semblance of order into a novel I'm contracted to release in December.  (More on that later this week.)

For the most part, though, I think of this attitude as akin to saying, "Why watch the Olympics?  I can watch athletic competitions any time at the local Y."  Yeah, man, I get it.  Not everyone is into this stuff.  But for those of us who are, NaNo is an event.  It's about the camaraderie.  It's about the commiseration.  It's about sharing what is otherwise a lonely, often bitter calling and/or profession with a world full of comrades.

Yes, a lot of them are n00bs.  So, what, are you fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi?  Then go help them out!  Be a fountain, not a drain.  Obi-Wan didn't say, "Oh, Luke, you are such a fucking loser for still being excited about Force pulls and shit." 

I don't even mind dealing with the n00bs.  You know why?  Because their attitude is so positive, they are so not yet ground down by the publishing industry, that they remind me of the spark of why I started doing this in the first place.

Oh, yeah, and all three of my published novels were NaNo babies.  Now, that being said, I sure as shit didn't boot the 120,000 word GHOUL ARCHIPELAGO out the door the day after NaNo.  But still, NaNo has been good to me, and NaNo has been good for me, and if nothing else, at least for one month out of the year I have no excuses to just watch a little more TV instead of writing because writing is hard.

Anyway, perhaps the lady is protesting too much.  So let's just say if you're participating this year, I'd be just tickled pink if you'd add me as a buddy.  Personally, I love having buddies to compete with  My insanely competitive nature really drives my word count into the stratosphere.

I'm not going to abandon the blog for the month.  I'm sure things will still grind my gears in November, so you'll probably get at least a few regular blogposts, and the Year of Interviewing Dangerously is far from over.  But for the most part expect some low-key, low priority posts, probably appraising you of my NaNo progress or thoughts on the whole matter.  That's where my effort is going to be directed for the next month.  Hope to see you there!