Good God, this blog hasn’t been updated in a month? And you call yourself a writer?

Yes. Yes, I do.

And for the last thirty days, I’ve been throwing myself into the mosh pit known as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. It’s a totally voluntary act. You can stand safely on the sidelines and observe the sweaty hurling of words, cringing as each sentence hits the page like a swift kick to the head with a steel-toed boot.

Or you can dive in, fists and fingers flying, and try to generate 50,000 words in one month.

On November 1st, I took a running leap from the stage right into the crowd. Below me churned a sea of writhing bodies: each plot twist, each conflict, each half-baked idea shouting “this way!” and “Hell Yeah!” I rode the waves, getting pulled this way and that, and more than once, I was dumped to the hard floor with little ceremony. Rubbing my bruised ego and glaring at my comrades-in-commas-and-words for their lack of support, I’d pull myself back up, up, up.

I crowd-surfed all the way through to November 28th.

And I emerged from the mosh pit of writing…bloody, grinning, chest-heaving. Victorious.

Some might describe NaNoWriMo as a mountain to scale, a hurdle to jump, a muse dressed in a big inflatable Sumo wrestler outfit just waiting to be taken down. Any way you slice it, it’s a huge accomplishment, whether you write 50 words or 50,000. You threw yourself in and took the chance. Hell yeah!