NaNoWriMo

As I'm sure you're all well-aware, National Novel Writing Month began yesterday. That joyous time of year when us writerly folk dedicate ourselves to churning out 50,000 words of pure and utter crap, which we then agonize over revising in December. That joyous time of year when we turn down dinner dates and skip class in order to complete our daily word count. When we forget to eat. Or sleep. Or basically function outside our novel.

I won't lie when I say I live for November. I'd heard about NaNo for years, but didn't actually begin participating until 2008. That year I wrote probably the worst story of my life; to this day, I'm still embarrassed to let anyone read it. Then last year I used NaNo to write the first half of my senior thesis. Granted, the first draft was complete shit, but! The resulting edits and completion of the novel landed me with a pretty solid manuscript, if I do say so myself. 

Up until about a week ago, I wasn't sure if I was going to participate this year. I've basically been married to my studies this semester and I thought maybe I'd sit this one out. Let one year pass in which I didn't nearly kill myself by slaving over a manuscript that would eventually need so much work, I'd nearly die a second time. My box of potential story ideas offered nothing inspiring for the coming month and I sat, dejectedly, wondering what my life would be like should it be NaNoless for a year.

Then I thought to myself, why don't I just cheat? I'm halfway through OBSESSION and need a push to finish it. Maybe NaNo would be just the ticket!

So here I am, day two of NaNoWriMo 2010, sitting on a 21,059 word manuscript. I have both the beginning and end, but now I need that chunk in the middle. The part of my story where life gets miserable, and I have a hard time writing because the subject matter is tough. But if I can push through this month, I should have a completed first draft, and can finally move on to the more enjoyable aspect of revising. I love OBSESSION. I like the idea behind it. I like that it isn't happy, and that it doesn't have a happy ending. I don't think every book needs that.

So yes, I'm cheating. I'm not writing 50,000 words, I'm writing about 30,000. But a writer's got to do what a writer's got to do. Good ol' NaNo. I knew you'd never let me down.

Anyone else participating this year?