NaNoWriMo

I haven't been able to blog up until today, because I was studying for the world's most demonic Physics test currently known to mankind. Today, however, the pain has ended, and I can write passionately and happily about the nerdy thing of my choosing.

The nerdy thing of my choosing has been doing somersaults in my head since the beginning of October.

NaNoWriMo: "Yo. Libby. I'm only four weeks away. Four. Weeks."

Libby: "But it's only October first!"

NaNoWriMo: "Exactly. Like I said. Four weeks. Not long. Feel the joy. Feel the dread."

Libby: *shivers* "Okay..."

(Oh, and by the way, I'm Libby, and I'm using this extremely pathetic but very apt blogging name because it is mine, and because I have a blog already, and because I was not intelligent enough to think of creating a new, snazzier account. I figure it'll add some excitement to the register you can see on the side -- you know, Pandahatgirl, MaristPlayBoy, madame spiceosis, and... Libby.)

At any rate, NaNoWriMo is one of those things you do for one, very simple reason: You Are Crazy.

It is not, in most senses of the word, what you would call "fun". PARTS of it are fun. Parts of it are ridiculous and lovely and hysterical and fantastic, and when you stop typing and hit the 50,000 word point on November the 30th, there is hardly any feeling in the world that can beat it.

However. If you have not heard of NaNoWriMo, a simple description will immediately alert you to all the ways that it might possibly NOT be fun. NaNoWriMo is a an abbreviation for "National Novel Writing Month". For the month of November, that is what you do. That is what you ARE. You write a novel in a month. In a MONTH. 50,000 words. 1,667 words a day.

NaNoWriMo creates strange tics in people. You keep odd hours, and you drink more coffee than you'd previously thought it possible for a human being to absorb, and you begin to talk often and animatedly about people who don't exist, and you stop using contractions completely, and you spend your Thanksgiving typing like a mad monkey with a piano. You keep on top of your schoolwork and clubs and social life but underlining every single aspect of all of those things is the NEED to get words down on paper. You bring notebooks and laptops everywhere you go and, if there's a lull in the conversation, a dull moment, a few seconds of mulling over what a teacher has said, you whip them out and your fingers are on fire.

Only not really, because who can write a good novel in a month? Nobody. Absolutely nobody. So you aren't writing anything good; you're writing something terrible, all the while fully conscious that it's terrible -- basking in the terrible, even. Who does that? Who does that without being crazy?

I LOVE how many crazy people this school contains.

The more sensible side of my brain is urging me to say here that not everybody treats NaNoWriMo like this. A lot of people manage to do it without going the whole hog and making it a lifestyle rather than an event. It's just, I can't. I don't want to. I welcome the chance to be a crazy writer and hermit it up in a coffee shop for a month. Looking back on last November, that's the only thing I can remember. Starbucks. Pencils. Sitting hunched in the theater at midnight, waiting for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 to begin, scribbling and scribbling and scribbling away because otherwise we weren't going to meet our quotas.

I'll also say here that NaNoWriMo isn't fun at all, not even the slightest bit, if you don't have friends doing it with you. The first year I did it, I did it alone. Normally, I have to be alone to write. I can't tell people about what I'm writing and I can't show them anything until it's finished, because otherwise everything will ride on their opinion and not on mine, and that very often ruins a story. NaNo, however, is not like that at all.

It is an utterly different species that thrives on speed and bad grammar and yes, the company of other people spending a month putting themselves at risk for carpal tunnel. You have to have people to whine to, to compare plot holes with, to give hugs to during the horrors of Week 2, to dance with during the glories of the very last days. If you don't, the sense of community that makes NaNo what it is just isn't there, and you'll find yourselves relying on the forums to get the support you need, which hardly ever helps.

However, this year, I'm pretty sure it's going to be my best November ever. This is Year Number Three for me, but that's not what matters -- what matters is all the PEOPLE I'm going to be NaNoing with. Pandahatgirl is one. I'm still sorting out whose usernames go with which person, but her boyfriend could be another. And I'm fairly sure that some other lovely RSC-ers are NaNo-ers as well. I've created a Facebook group -- it's here, if you'd like to be a part of it! (Come on! Join! It's going to be awesome!) and as of right now, we've got 23 members. We're going to do write-ins and events with the College's official NaNoWriMo club, and I'm absolutely beyond thrilled.

And a little bit scared. I always am.

NaNoWriMo: "You know what? You SHOULD be."

Libby: "I know. Dear God. Week Two. And plotting and homework and the need for coffee..."

NaNoWriMo: "You. Just. Wait."