And I will love it, and squeeze it, and call it My Debut Novel

Those of you who know me (basically pretty much anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis) may know that I am, for the second time in my life, participating in the annual 30-days-of-madness that is the NaNoWriMo experience.

I got involved for the first time back in 2006, when I was working full time and contemplating a future career as a librarian (which I am still contemplating, by the way--I'm just contemplating with an MLS in-hand nowadays).

I took on the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days (it works out to an entirely doable 1,667 words per day, which is roughly 6 pages (give or take, depending on how much dialogue you put in versus dense descriptive passages) of double-spaced text in a word processing document.

Not bad, and as I mentioned, totally doable. However, I avoided getting involved in 2007, and the November of 2008 was possibly the most intense semester I had while getting my Master's degree. So you'll understand why I didn't feel that any textual creation that was not directly linked to how to create a storytelling kit out of felt and rhymes about monkeys was going to be beneficial to me.

And I got all 'A's that semester, as I recall. So the novel-that-might-have-been was sacrificed on the alter of the GPA gods.

But.

This year I am free from (almost) all constraints. I have no job. (Which is still making me tremble with terror every time I remember that loan repayment is steadily marching toward me, but I manage to avoid the remembrance as much as possible.) Well, I have no job aside from some writing work I'm doing for my bro-in-law (thanks, nameless B-in-L!). But it's not such intense work that I can't take the time (particularly during my peak writing hours from about midnight to 2 or 3am) to pound out a few pages of novel every day.

So I'm doing it again. That's what I'm saying. (In an admittedly (and typical) roundabout and pointless fashion.)

And I'm rather wholly excited at this point. The first day, I wasn't sure I would even start the thing, although I had an idea that I had worked out a few weeks in advance.

The second day, I despised what I had written (aside from the first two pages--those were pretty good) the way an advanced alien culture despises war-torn Earthlings in science fiction plots.

The third day, and the fourth, and fifth and now sixth, I have found that what I'm writing has some good bits. Some honest-to-goodness fine bits of prose, mishmashed together of course with a bunch of really crappy prose. But there are, nonetheless, pieces to be proud of. And the writing of the thing gets easier every time I sit down.

I even find myself thinking about the plot on the toilet. Surely that is the sign of a dedicated novelist!

So last night, I discovered that the fine folks at CreateSpace have donated their resources to the foolhardy souls who undertake the NaNoWriMo challenge. They have offered to, for free, print up a proof copy of the finished book of all NaNoWriMo winners (who sign up for an account, of course, and put together a pdf file of the finished (or pseudo-finished?) novel).

Which just. Blew my mind a little.

So, I can not only write a fabulous, earth-shatteringly, (cliche-ridden) amazing first novel, but I can also get a copy of it. Printed. To hold. In my hands. And lend to relatives who will read the first chapter and kindly suggest that I look harder for a librarian job. And try to sell to others on Amazon.com.

I know it's self-publishing. I know it would not really make me a for-real published author. But, oh, my dear soul. There is something so appealing about the thought of holding my own book in my hands.

So much so, that I think I'll finish this year's NaNoWriMo too. 40,000 words to go, baby.