Blame Nora

That could almost be a song title. Almost.

Now, I had heard of National Novel Writing Month before. I quickly concluded that those who participated in it were either a) crazy or b) extremely talented.

Sunday at church Nora came over to me before the service started. She's just a few pages from finishing the first draft of her first novel. She is so excited...and justifiably so. She has started a blog, and wanted to share it with me. I open up my way cool phone (thank you, Jedi) and zipped an email off to myself with Nora's blog address.

And then Nora tells me that she's going to participate in this National Novel Writing Month. Only she doesn't say that. Oh no, she uses some crazy combination of letters a mildly dyslexic person can't hope to unscramble without the help of a secret decoder ring. Oh yeah, says I, after she had translated her gibberish, I have heard of that. I'm not sure what else I said, nothing intelligent I'm sure. And then an excited Nora flashed away to go rehearse with the worship team. Having emailed myself her blog addy, I was certain to remember to go check it out later, and I forgot all about the NaNo..something something something.

At this point, I feel like I should explain why Nora doesn't have a cool blog name. I figure since the aspiring author posts on her blog with her full name, I can use Nora on mine. Plus, I can't spell Aspiring Author. Spell check tells me its corrrect, but it just doesn't look right. I'm sure I can spell Nora.

Toa of Boy is playing on Webkinz. Sweetling is working hard on schoolwork. I was updating their attendence online, and checking and clearing out my email. And I came across Nora's blog. So, productivity fell by the wayside while I went to go check it out.

Fifty thousand words in a month is 1667 words in a day, says Nora. Hmmmm. The point isn't to put out a polished, finished, perfect manuscript. Hmmmm. The point is to spill the words onto the page without worrying about the results. Hmmmm again.

So, how much do I write when I put up a blog entry? (Too much, I know. Those brave few who read my blog can attest to how much excess keyboarding they have to wade through to get to any point of almost interest. It's like panning for gold. How much silt and gravel has to be slurried around in the hopes of a fleck of something shiney.) Right now I'm at 433 words in this entry. That's still a long way away from 1667. I pulled up Fawn and Richard. I have 5 pages typed up for Aztersil. That's 2566 words.

Do I want to write 1667 words in a day?

Those of you who know me, aren't real worried. Ah, you say, here she goes again. A few of you are taking a pool. Lets see how many days this lasts. And you are right, you are absolutely right. There is no way I'm going to find time to write that much every day. No way.

And yet. Hmmmm.

I'll let you in on a small secret. I started, and never got back to, a blog for a character concept I had. You remember the dresses I was looking at and the character pics I put together. I had been considering trying to tell a story from a first person point of view, in a journal, or diary format. Vaya's husband, the Gentle Giant, did a little banner for me in photoshop. The problem is the word count. There's no way I'm outputting 1667 words a day. Plus, I don't want to wrap up her story in a month. The point of the blog was to give me something to daydream about. If I just hack through a word count, what do I have to keep my imagination active through January and February? So, hmmmm, maybe not.

You know what I've concluded? Friends don't tell friends about National Novel Writing Month.