NaNoWriMo Cheerleader or....?

The start of NaNoWriMo is just a few days away, ladies and gentlemen! I hope you're getting your pencils sharpened, stocking your coffee in bulk, and having chats with your characters. I can hardly believe it's nearly here!

And while I'm so excited to be cheering everyone on this November, I'm also sad that I won't be participating. (So much so that I've been trying to figure out if I still can actually participate.) I love NaNoWriMo. I love the excitement, the atmosphere, the whole deal. I love knowing it forces me to take time out of my schedule every day to spend time with my fictional characters. I love NaNoWriMo.

November is going to be a crazy month for my family. In addition to the regular chaos that Thanksgiving brings, we're moving to a new apartment on November 16th. I have a prenatal appointment on November 17th. Then, my darling Bean is having a minor surgical procedure on November 18th. That week alone will be...well, crazy. This is all on top of packing and unpacking our lives, working full time, and chasing Bean around all day.

So I'd be crazy to do NaNoWriMo....right? Then why do I find myself working on an outline?

I have this story I want to write. And it's important to me for a lot of reasons. It won't leave me alone. And I find the more I try to set it aside, the more I think about it. The more aspects of it seem to pop up in my non-writing life. And I keep going back to it. It's begging to be written.

The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to prove to yourself you can make time to write a novel. You don't even have to finish. It's not like they're going to kick you out of some secret society if you don't hit 50,000+ words by November 30th. The point is to make time to write. And maybe now is the perfect time for me to do that.

My life is changing right now. We have baby #2 on the way, I'm working full time from home, and we're moving to a new place in a great area. Maybe this is the time for me to get back to work on this story instead of letting it linger in the "background/outlining" stage of writing.

So, dear friends and coffee lovers, while I will still be cheering you on during November, I've decided that my cheers will not be from the sidelines, but as someone who is right there with you, working away toward that magical number.

Yes, it's crazy. And I know I probably won't "win." But I have to at least try. If this is the time for me to write this story and I let it pass me by, I'll never forgive myself. I have to give this story--and myself--a chance, and now is the time to do it.

Wish me luck.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo.