It's baaa-ack

To catch up those playing at home - I wrote a book, I want to find an agent, I'm stymied by the possibility of failure. And . . . GO.

In July 2005, after 9 months of gestation and one book as a guidebook, I did this little thing called NaNoWriMo. It's this insanely crazy idea that you can write a book in one month (175 pages, 50,000 words, 30 days). Me and my crazy college roommates from UC8 (HollA!) decided that this was the thing for us - National Novel Writing Month, there we went.

Now, somehow or other I ended up being the only one who finished AND I don't think I ever got to read the fruitful endeavors of my posse (seriously guys, I can't believe we didn't rectify that) but, it helped. Helped clear the writers block, helped work through the daunting task of creative output, helped get me on the road to Fishsticks. No, my glorious Fishsticks, the one I'm avoiding sending to agents because I've somehow come up with the idea that all eggs equal this basket, was not the product of NaNoWriMo - my other book was.

To tell you the truth, I've actually written 3 and 3/4ths novels: Reading, Interrupted (my zany senior project about the nature of books and reading from the inside), Question Heir (my NaNoWriMo debut about carnival villains, their crime syndicate and the brooding man that gets caught up in it), Fishsticks (if you're reading this, you should be already acquainted) and My First Novel (I know, inspiring title; this is the 3/4ths - I'm SO close to finishing I'm not sure why the tragically ghoulish Irish love story is still sitting there undone).

And while my poor Question Heir will never see the light of day, it served it's purpose grandly by pushing me past the daunting mechanics of writing a book and making me see that it's in there, I just have to reach for it.

So, to make a long story short (Ha, this is Valerie who's talking), I've decided to take up with this crazy NaNoWriMo idea again. I can see no other way to get past my own head unless I lock up that little critic in my ear and lose the key for the next month. Good thing that's exactly what's required.

So - I'm at it again. I just signed up on the website and I'm about to go off and tell the world so they can harangue me for the next month. One more time for all. GoooOOOOOOOO NaNoWriMo! (nanowrimo.org) ;)