NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month. Every year I think about doing it. I even joined the website. But I never have got around to participating - until now.

This year I'm going to try it. I am. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Y'see, I write slowly.

Really, really slowly.

I edit as I go. I sit and debate word choice. I rewrite paragraphs repeatedly.

NaNoWriMo is about throwing words on the blank page/screen. You don't stop until the end of the month. And then you go back and edit.

That's outside my comfort zone. What if at the end, all I have is 50,000 words of utter dreck? All my time, blood, sweat, and tears were wasted.

There is a school of thought that says it's never a waste, that you learn from your mistakes. There's also a school of thought that says, stop trying to make lemonade out of lemons - don't buy lemons in the first place, get yourself a nice prime rib or something.

But I'm going to ignore that voice and try to just throw words at the page. Maybe it will be a liberating experience and I'll discover how to write faster and ignore my inner critic.

But mostly it'll be about joining in with my friends YES YES YOU MADE ME DO IT I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY NOW.