This. Is. NaNo!!!

I try to post here on a mostly regular basis. Most of the time I manage to pull it off. Sometimes, however, I fail spectacularly. But that's okay. My week was slightly busy and I forgot what day it was. :D That's life. Things get crazy. Sometimes the madness barges its way into the picture, sometimes you invite it with open arms. November is mere days away. For most people, November is the kick-off to the holiday season: Harvest, Thanksgiving, and the downhill slalom to Christmas. Pffft. Whatever. To a crew of crazy writers worldwide, November is all about NaNo- National Novel Writing Month!

The idea is to write a complete Novel, start to finish, 50,000 words, the end- in 30 days. Late nights, early mornings, coffee overload and telling the editing part of your brain to stuff it is both frightening and amazingly fun. Last year was my first year participating in the program. Last year was also the first time I've completed a finished piece of such a large word count. It was awesome.

This year promises to be even better. More people are signed up, the last numbers I saw had participants pinned at over 80,000. How sweet is that? My own tiny scrap of the map is more cohesive and organized; we even got our own region. Community writing events are on the calendar. Parties are planned. Even got the hubby in on the fun. It's going to be epic.

So I'll do my best to update everyone through the November chaos. Ta ta for now.

On Collecting

I collect. I collect a lot of different things. Lately, my main objects of interest are odd stuffed animals (Not the dead kind, that would be too creepy. Even for me) art supplies. Of course, that's in addition to my bizarre fascination with all things Hello Kitty. It's a sickness, really. I swear I'm a Pez dispenser away from an intervention.

Being a collector of random weirdness that has to be dusted has its advantages, though. Over the years I've developed a pretty decent eye for detail, especially for the unusual. And I use this to my full advantage when I write. Having a backlog of people, places, facts, things, and phrases in my head creates this wonderful mixture that I can draw upon for just about anything. I write down a lot of what intrigues me. It makes me feel like I'm somewhat organized, even though I know that it's a terrible, terrible charade. And on a really "on" day, I even manage to remember to take my camera with me.

I need all the help I can get my grubby little mitts on, plus it satisfies my need to gather things (Past life as a squirrel, maybe?).

Because it's there.

I watch a lot of documentary-type programs. I saw one about the high death toll that K2 takes on climbers. And the suicidal tendencies that the show highlighted just struck me as completely insane. If I recall correctly, the quote "Because it's there." embodied the motivation of a great majority of the climbers. Now I have issues concerning heights, frostbite, and oxygen sickness so great that I could never bring myself to try for a summit attempt. But then I got to thinking about the climber's motivation for doing what they did-the need to climb, to see what very few people ever have seen, to be at the top of the world. And while I don't have that same need (it's the height thing, I swear), I do have a need of my own, namely, concerning my writing.

One of the blogs I follow asked what is your ultimate goal for your writing. And, of course, my idea is to shoot for the stars and want it all. Why not? Dreaming and positive thinking are fantastic tools. And hey, who in their right mind would turn down a brilliant career doing what they love? Not me! But even if all I ever managed were an occasional printing, that'd be okay. Heck, even if all I managed were rough drafts that only the family read, that'd be okay, too. Because, to me, if I don't write, I'm not completely me. And if that is anything like those climbers feel like, then I can totally understand.