I have been thinking about the act of blogging, and what it means. Mostly I was thinking about blogs written by other people, and how very much I love them. Why are blogs so addictively entertaining?

I guess it's just that little glimpse into people's lives; the thing we all like about blogs. I also love to read my list of "regulars" (see right) and follow what's been happening in their lives and just laugh at the random mutterings and stories they tell. I like the strange friendships that have come from blogging. I have never met so many of the people I regularly read and/or comment on, but I would love to. One day after I get sickly-rich I will take a Blogger Tour and go visit the cities where you/ they all live. I will take you out to eat and we can drink or something, and then I promise I won't pester you to come back to your place, where I might clog up your toilet with something foul or pee on your bed. Nah. I know my limits and I won't overstay my welcome. I just think it would be fun to see the bloggers in person. And that also includes the ones I already do know, like Rob, who have moved away to a foreign land. I need to see you again; and the family, the dog, the house...

Well, as for me, I blog because it makes the day go faster. It's a way to just blab about some of the crap that floats around in my head. It's fun and I consider it a hobby. Is that odd? I mean, is "blogging" a hobby or just a thing we do? When I hear the word hobby I think of (Holly Hobby first, but that's not where I want to go with this, right now) doing something like painting, gardening, making model airplanes or something. On second thought, I think I want to retire the word "hobby" from my vocabulary. It feels a little too 1950s for me, and not in the cool rockabilly 1950s way, either. Just the dork way. So, in closing, blog= not a hobby. Just a something I do "for sport."

I have given it piles of thought, and effort, and I have decided that NaNoWriMo is probably not my thing. I was just as excited as anyone when I signed up, and even when I wrote my first chapter and posted it. But when I tried to pound out those crazy word counts on subsequent nights, a funny thing happened: my writing truly sucked. It was dead, it was forced, it was boring to read over and I realized I was cheating this story by going into it with this odd notion of "gotta write a certain wordcount everyday." I was doing something I never did before-- I was writing a few sentences, hitting the word counter. Write a few more, word counter again. This was distracting and not at all the mindframe I needed to be in to have FUN writing this book.

I work well with deadlines. I love deadlines, actually, and I like to do that last-minute crazy writing. But something about the flow of this story, and the way the character's voice needs to develop... it just was not working on the NaNoWriMo mindset. I did think about starting another book, but I think I would run into the same problem. I know other writers of blogs have mentioned they can't turn off their internal editor as they write, and I do that, too. Once I got critical of the new material I was writing, and analyzing it (I drive home from work thinking about the book, what this little detail could have meant and did I want to draw that particular metaphor up, and I really should do Google those names to make sure I am not inadvertantly stealing names and places from anywhere, blah blah blah...), and this meant I blocked it up and the fun slipped out somewhere along the line. I refuse to write fiction for anything else BUT FUN. It's my release and my escape and I have been doing it since I was 9. As cool as it would have been to be able to say "Yay! I finished NaNoWriMo!" when I stopped and really thought about it... it wasn't cool enough. What is cooler is to take my time on this story, accept I have things happening in my personal life that are pretty important and also worthy of my time, and enjoy my free time and let a story tell itself.

That being said, I have been working on the story, but it is going to unravel over the course of several months. I am taking this particular pressure off. And it makes me so happy to say that! Writing is all I have ever wanted to do, and I am aware that I am not the greatest writer in the world, but I really don't care. It's just a good time, and it's what I do. NaNoWriMo for me can't be the validation of that. I am already validated!

So anyway. That's all I have for now. But I do have a proposal to make to anyone who is interested:

What do you think of National Post Your Prom Photo Day? I would love to see what you all wore to your proms. Proms are funny things. Even just saying the word "prom" makes you feel like you have a mouth full of mashed potatoes. I thought we could scan and post a picture and tag other people to do it, too. Or just spread the word and everyone does it on, say, November 17. I don't know. Look at me, all wanna be startin' somethin'. Michael Jackson sang a song about me one time. Mamma say, mamma sah, moo mahk koo sah. (SHIT! That is not easy to spell. As you can see, I went phonetic on it. I didn't know what else to do!)