Well, here it is, Halloween night, and raining like hell. Those poor little soggy princesses and zombies out there trying to trick or treat in the rain! I remember having to do that a few times growing up.

Let me tell you, it sucks big time. It is the only time when you are actually better off with one of those shitty plastic costumes that cost five bucks rather than a decent homemade cloth one, because those shitty plastic ones actually keep the water out pretty well. That and a full rubber mask and you are relatively rainproof. That in not the problem.

The problem is that even when it is dry out, the humidity tend to build up something fierce inside those masks. Add rain, and soon you are drowning in the damn thing.

And anything that relies on makeup? Forget about it.

The only consolation is that few kids will be trick or treating, and so the competition will be down. (Me, I went anyway. It takes a lot more than rain to stop a fat kid from Trick-or-Treating. )

And not only is there less competition, but a rain soaked yet smiling kid saying “trick or treat” is a pretty pathetic sight, and so it is a perfect way to get a lot of sympathy candy.

I still would have preferred a dry Halloween though. Heck, even that one Halloween where winter came early and there was snow on the ground and in the air that night wasn’t that bad in comparison.

For one thing, you didn’t overheat under your costume so fast.

Speaking of being a fat kid at Halloween, I was always the kid who covered way more of the town than the other kids. That is how you get a fat kid to take a long walk : put candy on the line. I went out there with a costume, a garbage bag (eek, how crass), and a will to consume!

So I always ended up with this huge haul, and because I was the sort of kid who grasped delayed gratification instinctively, I would only eat a little at a time, and hence I still had candy come December. Heck, one year, I had a few of my less favoured candies left on Christmas Day!

Anyhow, extend your warmest (and driest) wishes to the kids slogging through the rain for candy.

But being the lonely writer type, tonight is not primarily Halloween. We are not the types to get into costume and go to parties and whatnot.

Not when we are terror stricken and cowering in our cold and lonesome garrets as the icy winds howl and shake the tiles of the roof, foretelling the coming, at that eldritch hour of midnight, the Witching Hour, of the dread specter that consumes our souls and takes over our lives for night on thirty days!

Its name is Nanny Remo, and none shall escape its wrath!!

Or as it is more commonly known, NaNoWriMo, or the National Novel Writing Month, when crazed scribblers like myself chain ourselves to our keyboards and/or pens, and attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

That is around 1667 words a day, which for Mister 1K Words A Day All Year Round here (that’s me), is not really that big a deal. It is a two thirds increase in output, and on that level, it is no biggie.

But, for me at least, it will be fiction, and that is way, way harder to write than my usual drivel. (Thanks for reading it, by the way.)

So I anticipate that, like last year, it will be an enjoyable challenge that really stretched my writing muscles in a mostly pleasant way.

It is like a marathon running finally getting to sprint. Only this is one heck of a sprint.

And speaking of last year, unlike last year, I will be publishing this year’s writing directly to this blog. That way SOMEone will see it, unlike last year’s product, which has been sitting on my hard drive gathering dust after a single initial proofread and edit last December.

I figure, odds are it will not be publishable anyhow, so why worry about copyright? However, there will be one really big change to business as usual and that leads me to the Important Announcement part of this evening’s little missive.

I will be turning comments off on this blog because there is no way my fragile writing process could stand commentary while I am writing the thing, and this goes double for real life.

I cannot stress this enough. Some of you know me and see me in the real world, and might be tempted to tell me what you think of what I have written so far. But please, please, please do not.

I need to do this without any input from the outside whatsoever. Please read… but say nothing until the month is over, or the first draft is done, whichever comes first.

That being the case, I will totally understand if you decide that reading the thing as I produce it is too much stress if you have to keep your mouth shut about it around me. It is a bit much to ask.

But still, I ask it. Feel free to read it, think about it, discuss it with others, and so on. Just make sure none of it comes back to me.

So as probably might have gone without saying, I will not be blogging per usual for the during of Nanny Remo’s fell reign. I will be pouring all my creative juices into writing my next big novel (well, 50K is a medium novel, actually) and it should be very exciting because once more, I only have a vague idea of a starting point and a couple of characters, so I will be finding out what happens next only slightly earlier than you do.

I thought about trying to come up with an outline and chapters and stuff, but that involves too many decisions made against a backdrop of infinite possibility.

I am better suiting to winging it.

See you in a month, folks!