For those of you who haven’t scoured the Internet for writing activities, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) might seem like an overly ambitious undertaking. And you’d be absolutely right: the task is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, from November 1st to the 30th.

I’d thought about participating this year, then came up with a list of valid excuses: I couldn’t decide which project to tackle, I didn’t like rushing through a first draft, I couldn’t finish a complete story in 30 days…

But when November 1st rolled around, I realized what day it was. After only a minute of debating it, I signed up for it and picked a random project to rush through.

The project in question was a middle-grade novel I’d conceived a few weeks before (actually, it was more of a “re-conceiving” of a project from my late teens). Since middle-grade fiction seems to be easier to write than YA or adult fiction, I jumped right in with little to no concern for fully developed characters or a rough outline.

But a few days in, I gave up. The story was blending with another project I was reworking, a humorous webcomic that never took off for various reasons. (If you’re curious: 1) It was about college students, and the Internet gods know that we don’t need another one of those. 2) I really didn’t have the drive or motivation to keep it up.)

So I picked up another project I’d started several weeks before. Yeah, it was cheating, but I’d gone three days without writing my NaNo, and I felt that using a 7,000+ word novel would get me ahead of schedule. It did. For a day.

I abandoned that one, deciding that it needed more research before I could continue, and returned to the first NaNo.

So far, I’m sticking with the first NaNo, and with luck, I’ll see it to 50K. If not… well, it won’t be the first time I failed.

I first participated in ‘07, and the NaNo I wrote then was so atrocious, I will never reveal it to anyone. I’m ashamed that I even wrote it. You want to talk about a rushed job? Hack writing? Plot holes so big you can drive a Mack truck through them? How about characters who changed from chapter to chapter to the point where they resembled asylum escapees in an Off-Off-Broadway production? This NaNo had it all and absolutely nothing.

But I went past 50K words. And I felt dirty when I downloaded my award banner.

I participated again in ‘08. The previous year’s sacrifice was a fantasy novel, but this one was a YA sci-fi offering. I made it to the sacrificial table, ceremonial blade in hand, but never quite made the incision. (Yes, my analogies suck. It is pretty close to midnight as I’m writing this.) So I abandoned the NaNo, but felt pretty good, because I wasn’t going to rush through it.

We’ll see how ’09’s NaNo turns out.