Getting in touch with my roots

I believe I have the first blog jitters. Perhaps it's because I have no idea how to run this thing...but mostly I think it's because of the content of this blog. I've been wanting to do something like this for what seems a lifetime, but I never had the courage/time to actually put pen to paper so to speak. So where to begin? I suppose the beginning would be a good place to start. Everyone sit down now and I will tell you a story.

Once upon a time I was driving my brand new car (Dodge Nitros are amazing and all people should own one) to the coast for my sister's 16th birthday. On this three and a half hour trip I had the pleasure of sharing my passenger seat with my step dad. We began to talk of all manner of things, specifically Lost theories and my great fear of bats. Somewhere between these two subjects we got to talking about writing. I love to write. Every time I think about creating a world of my own with just my imagination and something to write/type with I get giddy with excitement. I think many people can relate to this feeling because, well, creating is what we were created to do. Whether that creative nature comes through music, cooking, painting, sewing, knitting, whatever it is, when we do these things it satisfies a need that sometimes we don't even know is there. Writing fills that need for me.

Through the past couple of years I have gotten married, started a business, bought a house, been a part of ministry at my church, had 4 dogs, and so many other things! While all of this has been amazing and fulfilling somewhere along the way I seemed to have lost a part of who I am. Writing has always been a luxury and never really a necessity. But when you only do the necessary things in life and not the things that you love, life just seems to fall into a monotonous routine of "have-to's". All in favor of living a boring life say "I". Not I good sir. Not I. So without further ado I announce the reason behind this blog. 

My dear dear step dad told me about an online community of sorts for aspiring writers and novelists. Here is the challenge:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I am in touch with reality enough (though barely with working in my home all day every day) to realize that it is not November. But I really feel that I can't wait that long. There is always an excuse to not writing. "Big things are happening with the business" "I have to make dinner" "The laundry needs to be done" on and on and ON. SO even though this month will prove to be the most time consuming month of my life I feel that there is no better time to start this than right about....now. So every day I am committing to post snippets of what I have written for that day and not be overly concerned about criticism. I know that most of it WILL be crap. That's okay. Simply letting my husband read what I've written is a big step for me much less my whole world. But sometimes you have to risk it to get the biscuit :) Plus I would just slack off if there wasn't something to keep my accountable. 

THE END. Stay tuned for a more refined blog and my first day's worth of writing.