NANOWRIMO is here again!

It's official. I signed up again for NANOWRIMO--aka national novel writing month. If this piques your curiosity, click

HERE!

Last year was a fantastic experience with lingering lessons. I cranked out a novel. No matter how bad, it is an accomplishment. Above my desk hangs--not my Wellesley diploma, my Columbia diploma or my UW diploma--no, it is my NANOWRIMO winner certificate.

It showed me that with discipline, I can carve out the time. The experience launched me to start my own writing group, and broke me through a million mental barriers. The challenge also appeals to the adrenaline-fueled, ADD, need-for-instant-gratification part of my personality--which in truth is not so novelistic.

It is also like a crutch. NANOWRIMO, and the mysterious Chris Baty send out encouraging reminders, and advice from great novelists. Because you are all doing this at the same time, writing at the same rate, you end up going through a lot of the lonely writerly crises at exactly the same time (like on day 10 you think, oh, no, i am writing the wrong book, i should be writing this OTHER book, or on day 17 you are thinking, my god, i am half way through my so called novel and there is no plot? and right then a perfect email comes from some amazing writer saying, that always happens, or MAKE something happen now...)

So I am doing it again. I am cheating a little. This time I am rewriting my "memoir" and really really novelizing it. I will radically fictionalize and actually add in a plot. From page 1. I will be weaving real themes throughout--not just the themes I intended, but the hidden, latent themes I found I had in there thanks to the comments from my writing group.

Still, like meditation, there is something powerful about jumping in and doing something with a lot of other people. There is added power. Meditation teachers say yes, you can meditate alone. But when you have 60 people in a room it is like a rocket ship taking off.

Well, when you have 200,000 people around the world writing like literary madmen it keeps you accountable. Every cafe you go into you wonder if that person is part of your secret society of speed novelists. My friend Lee Rose Emery is doing it with me, and I hope Dave Marko, too.

I will kick off the month this Sunday night (Nov. 1) with a toste of LUCID (absinthe superieure) and a night of noveling at my local Argentinean cafe, Solar de Cahuenga.

Do you have a novel in you waiting to come out? If you do, sign up! It will make you feel wonderful!