(no endorsements are implied from this video.)
There’s a manic spirit of summer drifting in and making everyone wanting to Do Something, and I’ve decided not to fight the current this year. I will Do Something too. In fact, I’ve already got a head start, as I’m doing my laundry today. But maybe that isn’t enough. Yes, I’m almost certain of it.
Talking with my brother over the last couple of weeks has given me the inspiration and even the method of my new madness. He has a friend who did something called “NaNoWriMo” last year. And what might this wonderful anacronym refer to? Only National Novel Writing Month!!! Basically the idea is to crank out a 50K word novel within thirty days, aka the month of November. But check it, readers. For those insane enough that one month of sleepless nights spent beating their heads against the typewriter, begging, begging, begging for something, anything to occur to them, still leaves them with the shakes? There is apparently a secondary iditarod of fiction, namely JulNoWriMo (Psst! It takes place in July).
And I? Am! SO! DOWN! (memo to me: work on puctuation.)
If I can pull it off, it will be wonderful. Not that I’m expecting to be published by the end of the year with this or anything. That’s still a long way off probably. The Trick is though, I think, to write and write and pour your soul out onto a page again and again till you can string together about two hundred and fifty of them. Edit it to death. Take out that goopy sidenote about how snow reminds you of the cotton beards little kids make for Santa Claus and how it comforts your heart. Hand paint a cover and have it bound. Then? Throw it away. Do this about eleven times and your next book might just be alright.
At this rate, after about six years of Jul-and NaNoWriMos I should be a decent writer. Take that, mid-thirties!
Anyone want to jump on the band wagon with me????
Tags: discipline, writing
