As Michael discovered, November is National Novel Writing Month, and a website called NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) sponsors a write a novel in a month contest, which I am participating in for various reasons. Number one, I'm crazy. Number two, I believe output is key to success and growth as a writer. Number three, nothing seems to inspire me, meaning I'm willing to try anything. The goal is to write 50,000 words, starting at 12:01AM on November 1st and culminating at mid-night on November 30th. That's roughly 200 pages, of double spaced text, or 6.6 pages per day.
As I write this it is less than 45 minutes before the novel writing contest opens. I've been excited about it because I think the push is what I need to enable my writing, in the same way that lifting weights can give you energy for the rest of your day. Plus the story idea came to me readily and went together well, maybe because of the energy swirling around me thinking about the daunting task of writing so many words. At any rate in the past I'd considered going back to working on another novel I had in the works because it's a project I'm not as personally invested in as say screenwriting, or fiction articles, in other words, it's just writing. It doesn't have to be perfect or even good, in the same way that writing a journal is easy because of the casualness and freedom. (Casualness is a word by-the-way, I just looked it up.)
But mostly I'm tired. I don't stay up until mid-night, and certainly not to think. My head has that heavy feeling, that chanting that says, go to bed, you'll love it––and indeed I would. As Michael said, it's the same feeling you get when you have a ten page paper that you haven't started due the next day––of course sleep is going to sound like a good idea.
