Insanity

I have defined NaNoWriMo as “a month long ascent into insanity.”  It is also addictive and demanding – it drives you to write, to create.  As proof I offer the following:

In November of 2011 I became officially insane.  I was a brand new ML (Municipal Liaison) for NaNoWriMo — a volunteer organizer of local write ins, etc. I was also working full-time and going to school part-time.  And I was writing two novels in one month.

Why?  Because I had two story ideas and a stunning lack of decision-making ability.  One had more plot, but the other had a couple characters that had been kicking around for a while, and, no, they would not fit into the other plot.  So, since I couldn’t decide which to write, I wrote both.

And they both hit 50k.

How did I do it?  Beats me!  Shameless word-padding was part of it.

And planning.   I had a series of small papers due for a class.  There was no deadline other than “before the end of the semester” so I got them done and turned in before the end of October, freeing up loads of time in November.  I was happy. The prof was happy.  Everyone else thought I was a brown-noser.

And not being critical of what I was writing – that came later.  I let odd things happen.  I got silly.  I got dark.  And out of the silliness came some things I loved, and out of the darkness came some massive changes.  (Yeah, both books are waiting for a re-write.)

Writing in every spare moment was another:  I had scheduled a lot of write-ins and I went to all of them, except two.  One I missed because of an asthma attack triggered by potpourri in the bathroom at the library, and the other one…

The other one was the first write in of the month.  On the first of November, no less.  I had to miss it because the hot water tank declared war on the carpeted basement floor, my roommate was an hour and a half away having lunch with her mother, and the shut off valve was stuck.  (Yeah, that’s the way to get NaNoWriMo off to a good start… )

So, yeah: working full-time, going to school part-time, ML’ing for the first time… 30 days, 100,000 words…

And, sadly, no men with white coats.

I needed the men with the white coats.