NaNoWriMo, Or No Turning Back Now

"NaNoWriMo loves ozbound," is the message I received moments after registering for my very first National Novel Writing Month.  It's the message thousands of other masochistic writers (of course with their own user names) have received and will continue to receive after pledging their respective months of November to writing a 50,000-word novel.

At 12:01 a.m. on Nov. 1, I can start hitting the keys to see how far I can get. Meredith arrives on Nov. 26. So my goal, before she takes me back to Australia with her, is to finish by the time she gets here. That means I have to write 1,923.0769 words a day. I can't wait to start. I also can't wait to enjoy the feeling of actually having something to write about. Now if only I had an idea.

First I was considering using the time to continue my book. But that's not really in line with the whole NaNoWriMo point of suffering along with everyone else by creating a 50,000-word piece that stands on its own. So this lack-of-topic issue might be what I'd like to call mountain No. 1. Mountain No. 2? I've never in my life written fiction. The roommate suggests taking a tidbit from my book and going off on that in some fictional direction. Perhaps.

There's a part of me that wants to just hit it at that moment and go where each word takes me. I'm not trying to write something good. I'm trying to write something unabashedly. Without stopping. Without concern for syntax. That is my biggest problem. Dialog, too. Why not use it to write crap dialog for three pages and being OK with it to suddenly, finally, hit this flow where your head moves with the beat of your fingers as you imagine two people going back and forth and head to head with verbal punches meant to render unconscious everyone involved.

We'll see which method pans out. It begins in 25 days.