What have I done???

Oh My Goddess! What have I done?! What insanity possessed me the other night? Can I blame it on the moon? The lateness of the hour (it was midnight after all!)? What possessed my foggy little brain to commit to something like this? Something so terrifying?

So now you’re all sitting around wondering “what the hell did Spot do?”. Did she finally fall off the deep end and hold the pillow over hubby’s face because he wouldn’t quit snoring? Did she sleepwalk into the kitchen and eat all the cookies? Buy a baby off the black market? What did she do? Um…let me just assure you if was none of the above. It was far worse. (yes, worse than murdering my hubby, I mean people do stuff like that all the time, right?) I signed up for…wait for it…NaNoWriMo.




What was I thinking??? All I can say in my defense was that it was midnight and for some reason I was feeling confident that I do have a novel just waiting inside me. And that if I didn’t do something drastic, it might never get out. I’d just keep procrastinating and saying I didn’t have time.

For those of you who haven’t joined “the cult” as Jessica (who did not add me to her blogroll but whatever) called it, the concept is deceptively simple. You begin anytime after midnight on November 1st (today people!). And end on or before midnight on November 30th (29 short days away). You must write 50,000 words. No, no prizes (although you do get a cool web badge and some bragging rights). Nobody even reads your novel unless you let them by posting excerpts. You are not supposed to edit, just spew forth words. (Kind of like mind vomit through your fingers). The idea is just to get yourself going through the sheer volume of writing you’re producing. Doesn’t sound bad, right? Well it didn’t at midnight Friday night anyway.

But this morning, I’m sitting here staring at the blank piece of paper on the screen in front of me in abject terror. Seriously, I’m nauseous. And my head hurts. And I think I might vomit or hyperventilate. Or both. Which would be really messy. And I might choke. I have stage fright I(or writer fright) in the worst way. I’m petrified that the words might not come.

And if you break it down…50,000 words in 30 days comes out to roughly 1666 words a day. Which might not seem like much…but considering The Spell is 2233 words and took days to write, it’s a lot of pressure. Besides, there will be days I can’t write. Like Thanksgiving. Who the hell picked November??? November is a busy month. Why not March. Nothing happens in March and there are still 30 days.

Oh my…I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Alright…I have to at least try. I’ll be back….

****

I’m baaaacccckkk! And guess what? I deed it (yes, I spelled it that way on purpose. Because that's how it sounded when I said it.)! I really did. I gave myself two hours of uninterrupted time to start my novel and write my 1666 (give or take) words and I just jumped right in. And wrote. And wrote some more. And then some more. Until I finally stopped at 2253 words. I know right?! I’m feeling pretty awesome right now. I might even write some more later, because the story just started flowing and I could see the whole thing in my head. And if Sean hadn’t come in to get jeans out of the closet and made me lose my train of thought…I might have been able to keep going. But maybe not.

So anyway…I’m off to do those mundane everyday tasks that I’m going to have to do at least until I finish this novel and sell it and become rich and famous. Or con someone else into doing them. Hope you all had a great Halloween!
And any encouragement you’d like to send my way on this whole NaNoWriMo thing will be greatly appreciated!!

Do you think I can call myself a writer yet?
♥Spot