NaNoRhinoPlumbNo Just No

November is a busy blogging/writing month. If you're on the internet, you'll be seeing websites displaying their badges, full of hope and proudly announcing "I'm doing NaNoWriMo!" and "Join me and let's NaBloPoMo!"

What the what the? as my 10-year-old likes to say.

The first time I heard about NaNoWriMo was three years ago, and I couldn't resist saying Nanoo! Nanoo! Shazbot! while snapping imaginary rainbow striped suspenders and thinking of chasing rhinoceros. I still can't help it now, because I'm like a sixth grader.

NaNoWriMo is short and dirty for National Novel Writing Month. You begin November 1, like formally sign in to a site that keeps your work on file, and you write a 50,000 word novel in a month. 30 days and nights of wild-eyed obsessed frenzy (or would that just be me) until you reach your goal of 50,000 words by midnight November 30. Starting November 25, you can send your words in to have your count verified.

That's National Novel Writing Month. Cute, clever.

The other busy writing collective for November is NaBloPoMo. This one, I can't help saying po' me--like a third grader, when I see it. Because turns out not only am I like a sixth grader, but a third grader, too. NaBloPoMo is a blogging project where you post on your blog daily, for the month of November. Starting November 1, mind stimulating prompts are provided--I think it's a good writing exercise. 

National Blog Posting Month. Because who doesn't want to hear from me 30 times this month. Tempting. I. Know--but I won't be nambopamboing your inbox.  

I would never knock the aspirations of the ambitious among us. Doing either of these November writing exercises is taking on a project that's win win all the way around. Kick start that novel you've had inside you since junior year in high school. Post every day for a month--it could bring your passion for the written word to a whole 'nuther level. I say try it. Try both. Just dooooo it 'n get in dere, as they say in Wisconsin.

But, knowing me better and longer than I know anyone else out there, the reasons to not NaNoWriMo my butt off, and to not get on the NaBloPoMo crystal ship, are based on how very well I know myself.

If I were to commit to 50,000 words a month for NaNoWriMo, that would be all I'd think about. I know. I just completed a short 4-part story on my blog last week, Red Flags, and while I was working on it, it became the only thing that ran through my cerebrum. And not in a dreamy, creative what if Bill actually wanted Susie and not Janet kind of way, but in a too far into that existence way. 

I was absorbed into the world I was tapping out here, and it made me silent in my real life. I didn't talk to my kids when I was up with them in the morning because I was too busy re-arranging paragraphs in my head. When I picked them up from school, I asked how their day was, and then mentally jumped back into the next part of the tale I was constructing here. My mind never stopped.

There was too much living going on in the non-real world and not enough in the real one. But that's who I was for that week.

Really, I don't know how Stephen King does it. How does he get Crazy Mary in his head to Shut.Up?

That's why I'm not touching NaNoWriMo. Not for any prize rhino.

On to why I won't post a blog a day with NaBloPoMo. It's not because I won't have anything to say or would be at a loss for prompts--oh you all don't know the RESTRAINT I show on this blog. If I didn't know how obnoxious it would be, I'd post more times a day than Gawker does.

I can't do NaBloPoMo because I'd be Geena Davis in Thelma and Louise, "somethin's come alive in me and I cain't turn it off."   

And there you have it: my reasons for not joining in on the fun. I know things about myself. 

I'd lose you guys over my verbosity, I'd lose myself, and there'd be less of me than there already is in this house for my sweet babies.

I am, however, excited and looking forward to getting some action from the bloggers out there that I wish would post more often. And I'm eager to read about the end stages of the process of both of these projects with all of you: I can't imagine it would leave anyone unchanged.

As a show of solidarity, I've got your badges up with y'all, yo. ::taps heart, kisses index and middle finger:: 

     

Peace Out. xo

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Exciting news: thrilled to be featured on Studio30Plus today, with a love letter to my middle boy. If you're not already a part of the S30Plus community, think about joining up. They're an online writing community with over 700 members, weekly prompts, daily features, chats, writing exercises. I've found great blogs through the community there, like Abby Has Issues. 

In their words, "Studio30 Plus is a social media site for writers. By joining you can expect a vibrant, creative community established to help its members in countless ways."

Interested? Click on their FAQ Page.  

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