Normal people probably don’t get up in the morning wondering what they’ll finish or how far behind they’ll still be by day’s end. Do they?
It’s NaNoWriMo season, when previously sane people across the globe decide it would be a great idea to crank out a 50,000 word novel between bringing the kids back from trick-or-treating and decorating the house for Christmas. Somebody (who?) also manages to cook a turkey during this time. Don’t ask me how it all gets done. I’m sure I don’t know.
It’s in the spirit of this NaNoWriMoming (that’s what it’s called, right?) that, just two—or is it three?—weeks after creating this blogspot for myself and all my eminently share-worthy thoughts, I decided to jump right on in and blog something. Blogablogablogabloga. There you go, world. You’re welcome. Except I broke into a bit of a sweat when I sat down to do it, and I had to go and switch laundry loads and make a pot of chicken noodle soup from scratch while I recovered my nerve.
I’m a writer, but it’s not my habit to just sit down and write lots of words in a row. It is my habit to write a sentence (or, you know, a clause), and then read it several times, visit dictionary.com to go over some synonym options, add a few more words, and then delete the whole thing and go pick up the kids from school. So the decision to just go ahead and blog today, without a plan or even a topic, was truly counter to my M.O.
I quickly began to regret my blithe blog announcement on Facebook.
But, quite frankly, I’ve had enough of perfectionism. As much as I truly believe I’d turn into a drooling, obsessive and self-loathing lunatic within hours of signing on for NaNoWriMo, as crazy as those NaNoWriMomers strike me with their wacky hours and even wackier word counts, I realize they are on to something. While they’re plugging away without a care for punctuation, word choice, or any sort of accuracy, they’re transcending their own doubt. They touch the magic; they meet the muse. It’s the New York City Marathon brand of writing, and I’m one of the sideliners along the marathon course, who maybe doesn’t have a side-sticker, but who also still isn’t completely sure of what she’s capable of, if she’d just let go.
So, as I said, enough of perfectionism, enough of fear. It’s just a blog. Sheesh. Some people write them in ten minutes. I’ll just do it, and then get back to my editing my manuscript (yes, I’ve written one, and, no, I don’t care to say how long it has taken me) to within an inch of its life.
