The Critical Mom Writes a Novel

It's one of those things I've always wanted to do.  And I've tried, in a half-hearted way, always with results that now seem to me disastrous.  But November is National Novel Writing Month (how?  what?  Who said so? A presidential decree?) Better not question too fiercely.  April, the cruelest month (you know, the one breeding lilacs out of the dead ground or the one where folks are just longing to go on pilgrimages) is Poetry Writing Month, one-a-day, like your vitamins.  Now, I did do the poetry one . . . a poem a day sounds a lot less scary than 50,000 words in a month.  But if you join National Novel Writing Month (and hey, if you're a speed writer, you still can!) you get, for free (but in a burst of enthusiasm I sent them ten bucks) a nifty little word-counting website that charts for you how many words you've done that day.  You get little electronic badges for producing your first 10,000 and your first 25,000 and for selecting a writing buddy.  I find all this delightful.  

Here's what it all looks like:

http://nanowrimo.org

I am, in other words, now that I'm up to my 27,000th word, just too dang busy to pay attention to my blog.  Which, as a result, now has a readership of about four per day.

Folks, there is nothing more fun than writing a novel, I have discovered.  It's like telling yourself a story.  I love putting my heroine (actually, she's more of an anti-heroine) in Norway and Bavaria and Amsterdam.  It's a gas.  I'd almost say it's better than sex, but then nothing quite is.

The Critical Mom highly recommends National Novel Writing Month, and promises to bring you more news by the end of November.