I’m exhausted. Tired. When I get this way, everything acquires a fuzzy tint—I’m not sure tints can be fuzzy. I’ll have to ask the judges for a ruling on that later. I stare at an object until its meaning disappears and I lose visual focus. Sounds stretch over time, so a door slamming reverberates off the walls and ceiling until I manage to blink my lids over my glassy eyeballs and I forget all about the sound. As I stare at these words on the screen, they flash across moments where whole paragraphs appear and disappear, thoughts rise and drop in flaming balls, until, until what? Until I spew my uncooked thoughts across my questionable sanity.

I’m sure there are some people who are going to read the above drivel and roll their eyes. How can he write this, they will say, and, more importantly, how can he post it and subject his defenseless readers to his poorly edited thoughts? Those are all good questions. And I have answers to those important, if feebly articulated, questions.

I had previously hinted at participating in the National Novel Writing Month or Nanowrimo, as it is disgustingly known. Because of some threats and belittlement, which I will discuss later, I now find myself in the position of having to follow through with this course. Nanowrimo is an event that occurs every November during which aspiring novelists (or others who are gluttons for punishment, or Type-A personalities who are always looking for a challenge, think of people who climb mountains—with or without oxygen, since there’s a difference in the risk or “commitment” level of the two—or run across the desert with thimbles of water) from around the world (the aspiring novelists, that is) attempt to write a 50,000 word novel to (1) prove to themselves (and others) that they can write a novel; and (2) ah, hell. I don’t remember. But those people over in Nanowrimo, besides selling out by writing books about Nanowrimo, have a good FAQ that discusses these very subjects.

The important thing to discuss, at least for this musing, is why I am doing it? and of equal interest, what have I gotten myself into? I’ll answer the second question once I get started. It’s hard to know how something feels until you are knee deep in it (that always brings up images of brave adventurers wading through a few feet of liquidly shit). As to the first, I’m doing it because I need some structure to prove to myself that I can do this writing thing. I’ve attempted to set deadlines for myself (see 2 week deadlines), but those have usually flown by with little to show for them. I joined Nanowrimo with dreams of returning to my school days, where procrastination was possible, but at the end, I always finished the project. (I was just too scared of authority to do anything but finish the project.) Those are the rational reasons. But there are more interesting reasons that are much closer to the truth of why I’m going to subject myself to this punishment.

First (this is a separate list from the last paragraph, in case you were wondering), thousands of other hacks around the country will attempt to write 50,000 words. How can I possibly live with myself if they accomplish this and I fail? I mean, really, I’m much better than them: better educated, better looking, and I have good grammar skills—think about it, I know the difference between which and that, and (and this is an important and) I have mastered the use of the parenthesis and em-dash, what more evidence does one need?

Second, I’ve already dug myself into a wide hole with slanted and slimy walls. After reading my last entry, Chuck, the inspiration for updating my website (you remember: no English Lit. major was going to have a better looking and functioning website than a Computer Science/Philosophy major with an impeccable eye for style and brains the size of—okay, I’ll leave that one to your imagination), told me how he had read about this November event many years ago and kept putting off participating because, and here’s where he got creative, time commitments, lack of dedication, general laziness concerns, hairstyle appointments, transporting in-laws to the airport, wasting his “good” ideas on a poorly formed writing exercise, Fall cleaning obligations, something he blithely referred to as “work,” and, get this, the rugs in his house needed shampooing in November. Shampooing! (In the off-event that said English Lit. major attempts to question the veracity of my summarization of said English Lit. major’s excuses, let it be known that he has, on more than one occasion, falsified any one of the following: e-mail messages, conversations over pizza, philosophical debates while drinking Sake in a dark forest, and words in languages other than English.)

To continue, after I received the aforementioned (there’s a word I see way too often and should be forthwith banned from the English language) message, I immediately responded by much prodding, belittling, and generally questioning the length of said English Lit. major’s manhood. Much to my chagrin, Chuck has picked up the gauntlet and signed up to participate in this year’s Nanowrimo. He will join in questing to write 50,000 words through November.

The trick to this contest is that quality is not important; only quantity is. Editing is frowned upon and the two to three (to five) hours spent each day should be used to produce new words, i.e., more words that further the story, not new words that will be reviewed by the various committees that decide which words will be added to the dictionary and which will languish in the depths of internet chatrooms and message boards. For example, as of this sentence, this entry falls in around 845 words (943 words, once I added some amusing asides and other useless words by the criminally inane editing), well short of the 2,000 words I will need to produce each day to have a chance at finishing at the 50,000 word count at the end of November. The 845 words (stopping the clock to perform some simple mathematics) took me about 45 minutes to complete. In all fairness, I spent at least 15 minutes editing this entry to make it readable to the consuming public, a practice which I will have to foreswear (way too many fore words today) to have a chance at completing the goal. At this rate, I will need to spend about two hours of non-editing writing time each day for 25 days to be able to say that I completed the quest; thus, I will have saved the princess, collected enough jewels to reunite the pieces of the magical staff—which will be used to vanquish (since killing will not be, in the case of magical creatures and evil POTUS’s, enough) the evil overlord that has thrown the previously peaceful digital world into chaos—and obtained the highest score on level four, the maze level where two dragons give chase through hallways that are strangely reminiscent of an age of computer games where all the walls of a level look the same.

But I digress. The real (real) reason I am entering this contest, and reason number three, if you were counting, is because of a promise Doolies made (which she now tries to disclaim): she said, and I quote, “as soon as you write your first book, I will support you.” Without regard for what I just said (and with the understanding that I will swear, promise, stand up in court and in general deny what I am going to type), I’m not sure if those are the exact words that she used, or even if that was the message that she was trying to get across, but as I already said, I will stick with my interpretation of her words, since that gives me hope of a life of lying on the beach and drinking umbrella drinks. In short, she has given me the choice of living the charmed life of writing while she slaves away, poking patients and running around in her white coat with heart-listener-thingy-with-tubes-and-earpiece hanging over her neck, or continuing to run the rat race that has become my life. I think writing 50,000 words in November is a fair tradeoff to get closer to that dreamy state.

Doolies now claims, after she made all the above promises, including swearing using a ceremonial knife that, in previously incarnations, kings had used to swear the allegiance of their countries (we’re talking countries here, not mere promises of support!), that I would be “bored” and not like the life of a restful, philosophical existence, where I would spend the day thinking and writing well-received (and best-selling) literature (those are her words, not mine, paraphrased words, but nonetheless, her words). To think, she thinks I would rather work at my dream job than spend all day pounding my head against a computer trying to squeeze out just one more creative thought or well-formed sentence. What kind of drugs is she on?

With all of that said, I did want to tell you, dear reader, what it’s in for you. You have taken this long, long journey with me, reading all my musings in the hope of getting inside my brain and understanding, however shallowly, what makes me tick. In return, you will have the grand opportunity to read approximately (on most good days, and, for my benefit, let’s hope most of the days are good) 2,000 words each and every day in November. That’s correct: not only will I write that many words, I will turn around and post them in the evening. I know you’re asking yourself how it is you could have lucked out. Just think of this as my little gift to you.

Now that I’ve dug myself an even bigger hole with my large fingers, let’s hope I actually do this thing. I was leaning toward telling a story about a simple woodcrafter who builds chairs for a local temple, a story that I had outlined when I first started writing again, but never started or typed up my outline, but now I’m leaning toward telling the Pink Sweater story. I always liked that story and here’s the perfect time to completely ruin the telling of it. I have two more weeks to think about what I will write about.

In all seriousness (and, yes, for the most part, almost everything I write, particularly in musing form, is a feeble attempt at humor, complete with exaggeration, sarcasm, and deprecation aimed at myself and others), I am very happy that Chuck has decided to join me in participating in Nanowrimo. While the Nanowrimo website offers plenty of forums to discuss the pains and aggravations of this marathon, I’m not much of a forum guy. I’d rather have a trusted few who cheers me along and share in my aggravation and pains. And, of course, Doolies is going to be there. She’s already threatened all sorts of violence if I don’t follow through with my plans.

Now it’s just a matter of setting aside the time and actually doing it. I won’t bother presenting any excuses, but I will try to write longer musings from now until I start. Once I start, I will post what I write and show a progress bar toward my goal.

Yesterday, I attempted to drink Mountain Dew instead of a tall mocha and write. The result was a paragraph of saying nothing, followed by a long, unending silence. It took a tall mocha from my friendly, neighborhood “We Proudly Brew” Starbucks coffee outlet to get back into this writing thing. My experiment yesterday proved one thing: to complete this contest, I will have to drink lots and lots of Starbucks. Oh, the sacrifices that I will make!

Word count for today: 1,988. Not a great total, especially since it’s generally easier to write musings than fiction, but a respectful output for today. And, yes, just by writing this description of the word count, I pushed myself over the 2,000 word count: 2,033 (in case you were counting, and, no, I will not count again since I added this aside; okay, I will, but this is the last time, I promise: 2,061).