To NaNo or Not to NaNo...

That is the question.

So for those of you who did not know, last year I participated in (and totally kicked trash in) an annual event called National Novel Writing Month, more commonly known as NaNoWriMo. The goal of NNWM is to write a 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days. It's pretty crazy and almost anything you write during NNWM is guaranteed to be a pile of poo.

Which begs the question why anyone does it in the first place. For me, it was the joy of creating. In order to crank out that many words in 30 days, you're writing nearly 1,700 words a day (which averages out to a couple of pages). You're forced to turn off your internal editor and just create. It's really kind of awesome.

Last year, I loved doing NNWM. There were a couple times when I went completely mental and told my roommates I wanted to be a cubist painting, but it was a blast and worth every minute. And (ironically) I was even more on top of my homework during November than I was the entire semester.

This year, though, I had already decided to forgo NNWM. This semester is kind of crazy for me. Namely I have two opening shifts at work (that make me super tired ALL the TIME because 6 in the morning is not a happy hour) and twice a week I have a three hour sewing lab. Not to mention the rest of my classes, including a creative writing class in which I am being forced to write things that are not entirely of my liking. (id est I have discovered I have too many words in me to write a picture book.)

Then, I got The Email. This email came from the regional head of NNWM for Utah County. I've never met this person, but because I'm registered I get the emails anyway. So The Email was all about how NNWM is only a month away and how there's going to be a pre-NNWM event in the middle of October and how they already have write-ins scheduled at fancy libraries.

And all of a sudden I was slammed with nostalgia about getting 5 or 6 hours of sleep every night while I hammered out a novel. I remembered the giddiness of creation and the intense satisfaction of watching my progress bar grow every day. Not gonna lie, it's a pretty addictive sensation.

So now I'm all conflicted. I want to do NNWM again. I want a reason to write an obscene amount of words every day. (These days, my goal is to get 500 a day, and I'm struggling even to get that...blasted school.) I wouldn't be starting a new writing project. I'm already way in over my head with my current project, but I think to myself "Wouldn't it be so nice to slam out 50,000 more words? In just a month? Sure, those words will be jumbled and silly and you'll edit most of them out, but you'll be that much closer to actually finishing the dang thing."

And that, my friends, is a very tempting thought.