NaNoWriMo Starts

So. I did NaNoWriMo last year and had a great time and came out with about 40,000 words (nope, I didn't make it to the 50,000 word goal by November 30th.) I have been avoiding the knowledge that today is freaking November *shifty eyes* because I know there is no way in hell I can do it this year, and I'm downcast, bereft, bummed, bamboozled. . . Okay, not that last one but I got lost in the alliteration for a moment.

I kept going after November last year, and now I have a 65,000 word manuscript of a paranormal novel I am steadily revising with the keen insight of the coffee and critiquers. My first chapter is posted on my website.

This year, here I am with my face pressed up against the glass, condensation marks and face grease smudging the window, on the outside, looking in the cafe at Barnes and Noble where the writers I know go to flog their keyboard.

No warm camaraderie from my fellow authors. No late night marathons of writing while my children exist on Ramen noodles and whatever they scrape out to the crisper. No novel writing in November.

I'll certainly be writing everyday. But on stuff that pays me a lot quicker than shopping a novel does. Someone has to buy all that Ramen.

If you're doing NanNoWriMo, I'd love to hear about it. My fellow blogger at A Teaching Life is planning on doing it, so I'm going to live vicariously through her. If you're doing NaNoWriMo and blogging about it anywhere, tell me so I can use you shamelessly in the same manner.

So good luck, all you lucky, deranged NaNoWriMoers. May the force be with you. Always.