Stitchpop

The real reason I'm so tempted to have a go at Nanowrimo again this year?

It's not because I enjoyed adding to the year's busiest month (sales meeting, birthdays, holidays, etc.) with the self-imposed deadlines and unnecessary stress of writing a novel in 30 days.

I actually did not enjoy that. If I can force myself to think past the magical first few pages into the murky depths of what that reality was like, trudging through paragraph after paragraph of uninspired exposition just to meet each day's word count requirement, I actually have no desire to do any of that again.

But, oh. The beginning! The metaphorical casting-on of words. It's so simple just to begin, to entertain possibilities, open doors, pick up story lines that have not yet begun to suck. Characters exist as only a wisp of exciting potential and haven't yet been corrupted by ineffective fleshing-out or thinking-through.

I'm incurably addicted to starting things.

Now if someone were to join me... that would be all the convincing I need. Can't you just imagine a month of evenings spent camped out together with a pot of coffee and two computers crackling away between us? I would call out, "Toss me a plot line, honey! I'm drowning over here!" And he would reply, "Your main character finds evidence that a civilization of miniature, technologically sophisticated lemmings is flourishing in his/her vegetable drawer. Go!"

That's romance, is what that is. That's effing true love.