Rachael Crushes On NaNo

NaNoWriMo is sexy.

I knew that the first time I set eyes on him. All 50K of him, long, stretched out over the month, like I couldn't handle that many words.

He didn't think I could handle that many words? Did he have any idea what the idea of a challenge does to me? I'd show that NaNo who could write a novel in a month. Bring it.

By November 15th that first year, 2006, I knew I was in deep. I was doing it. I was writing every day. I was making it work. I was actually getting words on the page that were making me laugh. Plot was happening in front of my very eyes, and sometimes things felt smart and fresh, and every once in a while, I barely had to try.

Other times, the words looked like fish on dry land, flopping and gasping, waiting to die ignominiously. I ignored them, because NaNo was still whispering in my ear, "Ignore them. Let them flop. You'll gut them later. Ignore the smell."

Then, two days early, I hit 50,000 words with the word "stabbed." The hero and heroine were making out in a pantry, and he got punctured in the thigh with a knitting needle. It was appropriate, I thought. I did a victory dance like none I'd ever done before.

And then, as Sophie posted yesterday, I kind of never stopped writing. Three years later, I write every day. Today I'm 2K words into Book Three of a contracted work, and I'm headed out to San Francisco to find a good cafe in which to sit and write 2K or so of my NaNo.

I love that I'm writing both at the same time. It feels like I'm cheating on Book Three with my NaNo. It makes it dirty, and naughty; therefore it makes it FUN.

And we're back to NaNo being sexy. Mmmm. I'm gonna unwrap ALL those 50,000 words and make 'em my own.

Come here, big boy. Talk to mama.