Sitting Out 2015

This November, for the first time since 2008, I will NOT be participating in National Novel Writing Month. I acknowledge this may not be Earth-shattering news for everyone, but I feel it's important for me to say it out here on the wilds of the Internet for reasons of accountability.

This decision isn't due to a lack of ideas. In fact, I had every intention of participating as recently as a week ago, with an idea that was far enough out of my comfort zone/wheelhouse that I was somewhere between curious and excited to see how it might come together. Which is to say nothing of at least two other more fully-formed book concepts I have patiently waiting in the queue that could have benefitted from a month of drafting and workshopping and experimentation and discovery.

It doesn't have anything to do with being intimidated by the physical and mental endurance required to write a minimum of 50,000 words of story in thirty days or less. In each of the seven years I've participated, I've either met that goal or surpassed it, sometimes reaching the 50,000 mark in the final hours of the month, sometimes reaching it a week earlier than I needed to, and sometimes continuing beyond into the range of 65,000-70,000 words. I know if I decided to take it on, I would reach the goal. I make reaching goals a habit (largely because I know how mercilessly I'll beat up on myself afterward if I don't achieve them).

It doesn't have anything to do with prior commitments. November this year looks to bring a welcome mundanity to my weekly schedule, with many wide open evenings and weekends, and me at a place in the school year that has me able to keep up with my classroom and lesson planning without having to take too much time away from school to make up the slack. This is a really nice place to be.

My decision has everything to do with wanting to ride a wave of recent momentum I've found while working on the revisions for the somewhat intense middle grade ghost story I have every reason to believe will end up being my second (or possibly first?) novel. I've been working on the revisions for months now, but the time demands related to the beginning of the school year slowed my progress considerably. This is a project I've written and rewritten and revised and edited several times over on my own already, but working on it now, when knowing that eventual publication is so much more likely, changes everything. When I think of the difference between sitting here in my home office and telling stories to the computer screen because it's something I feel personally compelled to do and writing something that will ultimately be turned in to my agent so she can take it on submission, I think back to a line from an episode of "The West Wing." Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman just discovered he had had been politically bamboozled by the vice president in a manner which even someone as politically savvy as he was hadn't seen coming. When the VP confirmed what had happened, his response was, "Welcome to the NBA." I always took that to mean "You just found yourself working on a whole new level, pal. I suggest you start figuring out what it takes to try and keep up."

Now that I'm here, I really want to keep up. If that means passing on something that has become a tradition for me because I want to invest that same November time and dedicate that November energy to a project that's getting closer to completion by the day, I'm totally comfortable with that choice. I won't have a draft of something new to play with by the end of November, but I fully intend to have the newer, longer, deeper, and scarier version of The Ghost of Lake Emily delivered to my agent's inbox before 11:59 P.M. on Monday, November 30th.

Wish me luck. And it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to give me the occasional nudge or kick in the pants over the next thirty-seven days to keep me honest. I plan on reaching this goal, but that doesn't mean it's going to come easy.