NaNoWriMo: psyched up, or psyched out?

12 more days, folks. Here's my profile, should you wish to add me to your WB list. Who's doing it with me this year? And who's volunteering to be on the Super-Secret LJ Filter to read as I go?? SPEAK NOW, OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PIECE. Er...peace. (And I reserve the right to restrict entry, damnit!!)



For those who are new to the whole idea of NaNo and are wondering what I'm on about, this is the explanation. Simple and sweet, yes? Suuuuuure it is. Until you actually TRY IT. Write a novel in a month? 50,000 words? It sounds so easy, especially for someone like me, who must blog three times that much in any given 30 day span. But last year, my first "win" (you're a "winner" if you successfully produce 50,000 original words between November 1st and 30th; I crashed and burned in 2005 and '06, but I found my groove in '07 and am proud to display my little "winner!" badge wherever I can) was HARD WON. It was emotionally exhausting, often frustrating as hell, and my inner editor was screaming at some of the horrors that came forth as I attacked the project I named May December. But oh, the satisfaction of having that huge stack of paper at the end... And who knows? Maybe, with a LOT of editing, the finished product wouldn't be completely heinous.


Oops! How'd that get there?? *whistling innocently*

I want my old crew back this year, and I want at least a couple of new recruits, too. It's a bonding experience. And it can be ever so cathartic. JOIN ME.

The gauntlet's been thrown. I want as many fellow sufferers as I can get along with me for the ride. Last year, many of you guys helped kick my ass into finally winning it on my third try, so I expect the same this time around! (As we get closer to 11:59 p.m. on October 31st, you'll likely notice I'll have written a note on Facebook and tagged all of my past cohorts; who among you are coming back for more? Maybe calling you out publicly will give you the shove you need...)

I kind of want to shriek, "WORDS IS MY BUSINESS!!" but only a couple of you (Meli & Shell) would know why. So I won't.

I look forward to reading whatever comes out of your quills or pops up on your screens. I'm actually quite psyched about it this year, because an idea I abandoned two years ago has now formed much more fully in my wee brain, and I hope it'll turn out well. (And no, that doesn't mean that I've abandoned May December - I know there are a few of you who are still seething about how I left that off last November, and I do promise I'll finish it...possibly making a return to it in December, while the creative juices are still flowing trickling! You will find out what the deal is with Bronwyn...and that's only the beginning.)

So, newbies, get out of your comfort zone! TRY IT. It's liberating. And I know a lot of you can write, but choose not to. Now's your chance.

I'll leave off with the intro to last year's project (since it would be cheating for me to start on this year's novel early), and I await your comments saying you're bending to my will and committing yourself to the exquisite torture that only NaNoWriMo can bring.

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~ MAY DECEMBER ~

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

I'm sitting on the edge of his bed, holding one of the many bottles of god-knows-what I found laying about on his bathroom counter, in the nightstand drawers, anywhere I could think he would hide his stash. One bottle in hand, probably another thirty laying willy-nilly around this house. I used to love this house. Now look what it had become. It was his place of death, and within an hour or so, it'd probably be mine, too.

I'll write until it's illegible. That'll be my cue, the sign from above - or wherever - to lay back on this bed and wait for the end to come. I always pictured it being more dramatic than this. Or at the very least more poetic. Maybe it says something about me that I pictured this at all. Doesn't matter know, I suppose.

I read the prescription label. Figures. Valium. One of his two favourites. That's not to say he didn't dally in many other substances, but he certainly did favour his Valium and codeine. In retrospect, I find this almost amusing, really. All things considered, with the access he had as a doctor to anything he could have wanted, why would he choose such lightweight drugs? If you're going to have a hardcore addiction, you could, at the very least, take my path: Xanax and morphine.

It's a bit eerie, knowing that he's downstairs. Just lying there, face-down on the kitchen floor. I can actually smell the coppery tinge to the air up here. I'd be more unnerved, probably, had I not just swallowed a handful of the little yellow pills in this little orange bottle. I guess a few hundred milligrams of Valium can take the sting out of anything, even knowing that your ex is dead in the kitchen, and that you were the one who drove him to end it.

Between what I manage to write now, and what I kept as record in my journals for the past two years, I should be able to leave a complete picture for everyone. I feel like I owe the people I love an actual story. A beginning, middle and end to this ill-fated affair they all warned me against. After so much criticism from my English professors about my style, or lack thereof, and their irritation with the storyteller way I had with my diary, I finally found some use for it: The grandest suicide note in history. That's what I owe them. Don't sleep with the boss, they said. Well, they were right, I was wrong, but now the least I could do was tell them what lead me from being full of hope to being...well...dead.

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