Well, after going to the panel about it yesterday, I am willing to publicly commit :

I am totally doing NaNoWriMo this year!

NaNoWriMo stands for the National Novel Writing Month, and it’s an annual event where thousands of writers all over the world challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

That is 1,667 words per day. As the guy who wrote a million words in eleven freaking months, I scoff at such a petty challenge, with the hearty, mocking laughter of the bullying villain in a martial arts movie! HA Ha ha ha haaa!

In 2010, I wrote an average of 3,030 words per day for eleven months. That’s within spitting distance of twice the amount required by NaNoWriMo, and for eleven times as long.

Obviously, I respond well to crazy challenges. And with NaNoWriMo, I will be sharing the task with writers all around the world, instead of just crazily going it alone like I did in 2010.

Turns out, there’s a big online community for it, and local people in Vancouver who do it with their own webspace, and people get together for “write-ins” where everyone brings their laptop and people write for 20 mins, then stop for 10, lather, rinse, repeat. I am not going to do those, because I absolutely loathe being interrupted once I get started. It would be torture.

But they also have purely social gatherings, and I will likely go to those, unless I go into full Scribbling Hermit mode and can’t beat to leave the computer, lest my muse put a leather bag over my head, drag me into a dark alley, and beat the ever loving crap out of me for stopping.

Don’t laugh. It happens.

I already know the jumping-off point I want to try, though I might not be able to wait. In fact, waiting is going to be the worst part, because I’m super stoked right now and November is 29 days away. Argh!

Maybe I will write a novel this month too, just to warm up.

Or might that seem a tad arrogant?

Feh. I could use some arrogance. After all, I am awesome!

I just need to cry havok and let slip the hounds of words.

Mush, you huskies! We’re going crazy and making great time!