NaNo... no way. (yes way?)

So, uh. I might do NaNoWriMo.

*scuffles feet on floor, stares at shoes, feels weird*

For those who don't read way too many blogs like I do and haven't seen multitudes of bloggers try this crazy thing, NaNoWriMo is a writing project. Specifically, it's a commitment to write a 50,000-word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. You're not supposed to bring in any previous half-finished work, because you already care about it too much to be able to write the utter junk that will come out of writing so much so fast; it's supposed to be quantity, not quality. In the organizers' words:

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I feel lame for even wanting to, because it's sort of targeted to people who haven't written novels, and I have, and it's sitting in a drawer being lonely and sad and I feel guilty whenever I even think about it -- and THAT, my friends, that is why I'm going to do this thing.

(Did I just say I AM going to do it and not I'm THINKING about doing it? Uh.)

But I don't want to feel bad and guilty about writing, I don't want all this weird baggage about agents and the economy and the feeling of looking at those thin pathetic rejection envelopes hanging around. The reason I started writing in the first place was because I wanted to, right? Because it was just what I wanted to do. And that hasn't changed, even though I bury it under all these layers of weirdness. I want to build without tearing down -- something that I, a relentlessly obsessive editor who actually enjoys the editing process, never even tried with the first novel.

November is even sort of a good time for me... my internship is over and I'm not going to start volunteering until after the holidays, which means I have one whole day a week when I don't have to be at school or at my job. (Things I am now ignoring: the entire week of Thanksgiving when I plan to be in three different states, the existence of end-of-semester papers and projects, a deadline for the longest and most in-depth article I've ever written for any publication, ever.) But hey, maybe I'll just write 20,000 words a day every Wednesday! Ha.

[T]he glow from making big, messy art, and watching others make big, messy art, lasts for a long, long time. The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self. We like that.

It's insane.

I'm doing it.

I just registered.

(Who's with me? Someone? Maybe?)