Dear NaNoWriMo....

Dearest NaNoWriMo:

Oh, NaNo, you bright, shiny tease of a possibility. It pains me to write this, but alas, it must be done.

We first met back in 2011. I had been writing for hardly a year. With my shiny new agent and  shiny new idea, I was pulled in by your siren's song. And I wrote--oh, how I wrote! The crap that poured forth from my fingers, over the keyboard, and is forevermore a part of my computer's now-rusty memory was prolific. Dear, sweet NaNo. What a flurry of words!

What an ever-loving mess.

Every year since, you've tempted me. Every year I swore I would write.

And for the past two years my promises have been for naught. Last year, I had a new job--two, actually--and not even the temptation of "winning" was enough to sacrifice the luxury of sleep. This year, I promised, promised!, things would be different. I touted your brilliance near and far. I made plans. 

Oh, how I've failed! You are now one-third past, but I have written nothing new.

Do you know what I have done, gentle NaNo? Do you know what I continue to do?

Yes, that is exactly right--I continue to work on that bit of temptation that I first began two years ago with you.

It is time for the truth my lovely--but the fault does not lie in you. No, those wild nights of flailing words, those days of walking through a land of dreams instead of, say, feeding one's children--what luxury! What temptation! But it is simply not for me.

No, my dear NaNo, mine is not the path of words vomited onto paper (or screen). No, neither the call of your public declarations nor the shame-induced productivity your progress bar portends tempts me this year.

So I will continue on, as I have done for many a day now. And I will write, not words in the thousands, but words with enough weight to stick on my page.

And when you come again next year....



Oh, who am I kidding? I'm TOTALLY doing NaNo next year.