me, in all my intellectual badass-ness, has signed on for the nanowrimo challenge 2012.

what.

the.

hell.

yep, i figure with nearly 5 months of blogging under my belt a 50,000 word novel would be a cake walk and apparently a good time to boot. i have no idea what i am doing. none what so ever and to tell you the truth i’m kind of glad i don’t.  i’m working on not overanalyzing this activity. i believe that if i create a tsunami of reason in my mind i will tip over and drown in the storm of my own excuses.

i appreciate the deadline. write a novel by november 30th. i also appreciate the guidelines. 50,000 words no less. and that that is all there is to the process. no one is saying my novel has to be good or even readable, it just has to be written.

so i’m committing to writing roughly 1667 words everyday. i think i can do that. now the bigger question is who might i stay on point for 50,000 words? but nanowrimo cautions you against worrying too much about pesky plots and character development. did i mention that i’m working on not worrying.

all last week, i set my goal to write short stories that were no less than 1,667 words. there were points in writing them that i truly had no idea where the story line would go or even who the stories were actually about. it was an interesting exercise to come to the table with one idea and have the characters take it in a completely different direction. i’m wondering if an entire book would unfold in a similar pattern.

yesterday during my area’s nanowrimo kick off party we were asked to provide the first line in our book. i, of course, being a finalist for procrastinator of the year (they keep putting off the awards ceremony) had no idea that i should have a character, book title, etc. before the start date. it was a bit intimidating to be sitting at a table with people who had outlines, character family trees, geographic locations planned as well as subplots already thought out. who does that? anyway so sitting there stressing out about a first liner to a book i haven’t even given a thought about while curiously trying to correct my son from announcing to the table that his name is now ‘tyrone’ i came up with

‘if i told you my name was sadie, that was my first lie.’

that’s my first line. or it was as of yesterday afternoon at 4:15 pm. who knows where it will go from there. or even if there is even the starting point to begin with. such a line could be the beginning of a mystery. i do enjoy a good mystery from the stephanie plum series to anything walter mosley i like a mystery with a down and out character driving the story. but i’ve never fancied myself a mystery writer. hell when i really get down to it i don’t know that i’ve ever fancied myself any genre specific type of writer. i write what comes to me as it comes. sometimes that a poem and sometimes its a political rant about my vagina. these are all worthy commentaries for a blog but i don’t know that they would make for a moving novel.

in reality i’ve been de-pepping my talk about even being the contest. i mean between my daily life as mother, professional helper and wayward housekeeper and family cook i have not idea where i’m going to find time to write a blog, a book and maintain some order in this cranium of complexity (i’ve given up on the house). and as an aside i’ve been having dreams of nancy drew (old school nancy drew) digging up people in my present left tied up in duffel bags in strange and unusual places.

see, what would a novel coming out of this brain look like. a hodge podge of tomfoolery that’s what it’d be. but the nerd girl geek in me is so excited she’s doing somersaults and triple axles with shaking knees. i mean this is the geek triathlon but without muscle strain (i’m not counting wrist pains or caffeinated brain freezes). so i’m in and this week chances are as day one draws nearer and nearer this blog will be filled with my mixed bag of anxious excitement.

to all other members of nanowrimo help me out. i don’t even know how to navigate the website. my  name is msolugbala. i could use a friend.

the word is resolved.