November begins

Last year I would not commit to NanoWrimo and instead committed to writing 30,000 words for the month of November, a serious undertaking no doubt. I had been blogging for awhile but I had never given anyone access to the blog. But to keep myself accountable, I gave people access. It was scary. And while I know that there are times when strangers read, most of the blog reading I am confident, is done by people who love me and have to praise me. That is what I tell myself.

I will share a couple of fun stories. One is that I googled DKU Dribbles once and found a reference to the first blog I did. It was the beginning of a series called, "el dia de los muertos" and the first was to honor my late mother in law. It was being used as an example of American writing somewhere in India.

Another funny one is that I wrote about being superstitious when I had an itchy palm and I googled it.... I found out that we a very superstitious people even in the United States. Well someone wanted to post the very first comment I had ever received -- which I blocked. Perhaps I should have let it ride. But they were sure that my itchy palms were a sign of some serious venereal disease. When I stopped laughing I was kind of sad that - that was really my first real comment.

Anyway, this year, this November, this weekend begins the slog towards the real NanoWrimo http://www.nanowrimo.org/ committment of a 50,000 word novel in the next 30 days. I have to tell you I started the committment by giving myself permission to fail. I know that is a cop out but that is alot of writing and I do have other committments this month. However, I was totally unprepared for failing the first day! I blocked out the weekend and sat down to write and then noticed the dishes needed doing and the coffee needed making and a load of laundry needed washing and the coffee beans needed grinding and my bed needed making and ... need I go on? At 10:30 I had my hair cut and then wandered around Freddies for awhile. I read some more of the book called NO PLOT NO PROBLEM by Chris Baty which is a handbook for the whole NanoWrimo thing and then took a nap. I filled the bird seed feeders and cut the roses in the rain, even picked a few for the house. I thawed out chicken and cut carrots and potatoes and made a luscious soup for dinner. Yes I got around to writing but it was painfully hard. The first day I expected to be easy and it was not.

So wish me luck. I want to get to the end of the month with relationships with my children and friends in tact, with my job still getting done, without piles of laundry and dishes stacking up. I want to write 50,000 words of coherent narrative that I never have to let anyone read. But I want to finish the month and know that I had it in me and that marathons can look be different at different times. And this one is definitely an ultra and it is the one I have committed to today. DKU