National Novel Writing Month (like I need something ELSE to do...)

Inspired by my good friend Jenna St. Hilaire, I am taking part in this year's National Novel Writing Month.

So what the heck is National Novel Writing Month?

Between this coming November 1st and midnight on the night of November 30th, each participant will try to crank out a 50,000 word, 175-page novel from scratch. You can read more about it here.

As Jenna puts it, "...I smell challenge--the sort of challenge I cannot resist." So it is with me. And this is gonna be tough to do, not the least of which is because my life seems constantly besieged by all manner of general craziness (self-employed, more than occasional crises, trying to do what some will say is too much creative project already, community theatre, etc.).

But the biggest reason why I'm going to take a stab at "NaNoWriMo" is because I think this is going to be very therapeutic and cathartic for me as a writer.

It's like this: try though I have, writing fiction is very hard for me. I can write a fictional screenplay quite easily. But a long narrative novel? That is something that I have never been able to do. So I'm thinking that if compelled (by my own volition) to write a novel within the narrow span of one month, that it might break that stranglehold/bottleneck on my authoring skills. And maybe even free my mind and spirit to write more fiction.

It's gonna be hard. But in the end, I think it will be worth it.

So far as ideas for a novel go: I've had a few already since last night. There's one in particular that I'm inclined to go with at the moment, but we'll see what percolates in the ol' gray matter between now and October 31st.