[Untitled] – by Lisabeth C.

NaNoWriMo ‘08 is almost upon us…and by “almost” I mean “next thing I’m really looking forward to.” I like fall. It brings back pleasant memories of when my husband and I started dating. I get a kick out of Halloween, although it’s become stressful since I’ve made a habit of creating elaborate costumes for my son (this year I’ve doubled the pressure with an added offspring). A morning walk in Ravenna Park when the leaves are on the ground and the smell of decomposition is in the air? Excellent! But NaNo really has to take top billing.

I won NaNo the first year I entered, after a year or two of jealously watching my husband participate. At that time, I was in the process of finishing my degree. With college, work, and a preschooler competing for my attention, finding time to write 50,000 words in 30 days would have meant abandoning any pretense of sleeping. I understand plenty of other NaNo participants face those hurdles and win, but I am a better person when I function on a semi-regular schedule. I can pull out the heroics for a couple weeks tops, but longer than that…nope, I’m not cut out for the graveyard shift.

My first novel was a silly, tongue-in-cheek adventure called The Curse of the Evil Monkey Eyes. It was set in a fictionalized, colonial-era Caribbean/Central Mexico/New Orleans. This was before both the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the destruction of New Orleans by hurricane, just to set the record straight. The best part of that NaNo was that for the first time in my life I escaped the nagging voice of my “inner-editor” (the label used by Chris Baty in his book) and just wrote. I had a marvelous time.

However, just like my husband and I discovered that you can’t have the same vacation twice (don’t ask), I haven’t had a good NaNo since. November has erupted in both serious illness and late pregnancy (though not at the same time, thankfully). This doesn’t stop me from hoping that this year I’ll break the curse but it does make my prep work feel bittersweet.

Which brings us to why I’m here in the first place: practice. The idea is to practice two of the skills I’m worst at: one, devoting time to what I really wish I were doing; and two, writing something and then letting go of it and moving on.

Here we go, then: letting go…moving on…