Day 12

While Doc’s stilettos and thong challenge was enough to light a fire beneath my sleepy butt, I must say that things are naturally coming along quite swimmingly.

My first novel took me every bit of six years to create before it finally reached that coveted destination called THE END. By that time I was just as exhausted as if I’d given birth. Just as proud, too. But Lord was it an ugly duckling! I admit to being over-critical of my brain fruit, but even a not-so-savvy reader would’ve declared it slightly hideous in its youth. A year’s worth of beauty sleep and then another year-and-a-half of cosmetic surgery and I’m STILL not sure she’s ready to be presented to the world. I just don’t know when to quit fixing… a little Botox here, a little lipo there, a whole lot of chemical peel up at the top... It’s like having Michael Jackson Syndrome but different. In this case, I’m the cosmetic surgeon and my novel brainchild is just a helpless victim.

Maybe that’s why I’m so excited to be going all gangbusters writing something new this month. It helps me to know that there are around 77,000 other people dedicating themselves to the cause of writing without stopping to fix. 77,000 others who are neglecting the beckon calls of their significant others, or slacking off on their blog reading, or justifying using sick leave because of the sympathy pains they are having for their depressed protagonists. It’s a BLAST. If you are looking to temporarily lose all your sensibilities without breaking any minor laws, I HIGHLY recommend it. Talk about an ego booster when you manage to write three or four pages in the span of time that it would normally take you to give two small children a bath…I’m pretty stunned at my NaNoWriMo progress. So who cares that my kitchen smells like toe jam. Or that my desk is floating in a sea of laundry. Or that my teeth are turning that 1970s harvest yellow color from twelve days of subsisting on little more than coffee. By God, I’ve written about 70 12-point, double-spaced pages in the span of TWELVE DAYS.

I know, I know…is it really worth it? HELL. YES. I’m telling a compelling story, if I do say so myself. I’m proving to myself that I CAN adhere to deadlines. And, with the help of a good therapist, the kids will be talking about their mother’s accomplishment to their great-grandchildren someday…. Or, you know, maybe just to the lawn guy. I can hear it now… “No, man, she didn’t do the Peace Corp. Or Sierra Club. Or Toys for Tots. Dude, she did NaNoWriMo. And WON.”