April: Week three of NaNo.

By now, you’ve determined one of three things:

a.)    People doing NaNo are nutters who should all be consolidated into one, well constructed, insane asylum. Writers are crazy enough without NaNoWriMo.

b.)    You’re woefully behind and may NEVER make it but there’s still this weekend to catch up

c.)     You’re on track or flying ahead of the “competition” towards the finish line.

Well, I suppose there is one more category — the psycho, nut jobs that are actually thinking NaNo is awesome and are delusional on lack of sleep and visions of grandeur (One novel in a month… even with revisions and rewrites that means maybe six books a year, take that over a three year time span and you have a career making 18 novels. Even Nora Roberts (J.D. Robb) would have trouble competing with that volume.) And what if they’re really good—Gena Showalter, eat your heart out.

Ahem. Now sleep deprivation, lack of proper exercise, sunshine and human contact is not an excuse for getting sloppy but let’s tell the truth. As any novelist will tell you (unless they’re really pragmatic and can maintain a steady pace) that the last quarter of any book practically writes itself. It may not be good writing but you at least know where you’re going and for me, you’re too impatient to get to the end to worry about whether it’s getting sloppy or missing anything. You. Just. Want. To. Get. It. Done.

Kendal, what’s your opinion, is NaNo kicking your butt or are you kicking its butt?

Kendal: Well, I’m not doing horrible, but I’m not where I should be either. Due to real life causing a few hiccups I completely lost two days when it was just impossible to write. I feel like I’m in the middle of the ocean hanging onto a piece of driftwood. My head is still above water but my legs are getting tired. I just can’t let go because I’m not defeated yet, and that f*ing rescue boat should be here soon. I think I can see it on the horizon, but my voice is too tried to call out to it. Hey, April, can you give it a whisle for me? 

But seriously, this is crazy! Crazy in a good way. I have you and Alexia Reed rooting me on and in the trenches with me, so I feel like I can do it. Plus, if I fail I feel like I’m failing all of us. So back to the story I go, because even though sometimes I don’t succeed at everything I do, at least I give it 100%….and I’m not doing giving Nano 100% yet. Not until 11:59 on November 30th.

April: Of course, everyone that’s still not there, next week is Thanksgiving—some people can do all of NaNo over those four days. Wouldn’t recommend but if you’re determined (and highly delusional), you can do it.

Kendal: Oh you lucky turkeys! I forgot about Thanksgiving. Well here in Canada we have no more holidays left until Christmas, so maybe I’ll just have to introduce one for myself. Maybe National “Get Kendal’s word count up”. It involves writing till my eyes are blurry and a nap. Good holiday.

April: I promise not to stand over you and tell you, “You suck. Just quit now. Who do you think you are to think you can write a book in a month? Crazy talk.”

 Well, I told you I wouldn’t stand over you and say it… in a blog post…pwwsst. Don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m completely confident you can do… um… 50,000 words in just four days. Writers do it ALL the time. Just look at all those NaNo-ers that make it. Some are already almost done with their novels… or as of 10:15 pm today, will be.  But who’s counting… you are your own person. Dig in, enjoy, deprive yourself of sleep. You can totally do this.

Note: As of the printing of this blog, there are 331 hours left, depending on what time zone you’re on.  The countdown begins.