NaNoWriMo?

So it's October 4th.  I've successfully completed Poem-a-Day September, and I'm slowly moving into Poem-a-Day October with a different Poem Keeper for the month.  Methinks that if I continue throughout the year I'm going to use different people as Poem Keepers so that I have a different audience month after month.  Or I'll just switch back and forth between these two fantastic Poem Keepers.  I haven't decided yet because I'm not even sure that I'm going to extend this into November.

BUT there's something huger that happens in November.

National Novel Writing Month.  (NaNoWriMo)

So there's that.

I've never done NaNoWriMo.  For a couple reasons:
1.  It terrifies me.
2.  That's a lot of work to do all in one month.
3.  I'm already spread thin life-wise.
4.  It terrifies me.
5.  Did I mention it terrifies me?

I have two friends in a novel writing class this semester, and even that seems daunting.  The idea of writing an entire novel in the course of a single month just seems like insanity.  And yet the more poetry I write during my business classes, the more the idea appeals to me, despite the terror.  I know for a fact that I would have absolutely no time.  I already have no time, so I don't know where the novel-writing time would come from, but part of me wonders if that's where I can relocate my Facebook/Twitter time.  Though let's be honest, I would still do both of those things.  That would also end up putting this blog on the backburner, I know it.

But I'm thinking: why not?  I could always start it and see where it goes.  If I write something that ends up short but I manage to finish it anyway, that's something.  I haven't been writing a lot of prose lately because of the obvious reason that I'm not comfortable with it after the whole "let the Real Brianna write" fiasco that was my short story cycle class.  And also because I'm still suffering from a slight identity crisis in that I STILL don't know who the heck this "Real Brianna" is anyway.  I really just wish someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hey, this is the Real Brianna, you should really sit down and chat!"  That would make my life infinitely simpler.

If I don't end up doing NaNoWriMo, I'm thinking that I still need to force myself to write some prose.  I've been in this state of poetic bliss recently, and that's great and all, but I feel not very well-rounded.  And then there's the guilt that I'm abandoning a form that I came into college believing I would write for all time.  Which is a strange experience, but I'm living with it.  So I'm thinking...a short story a week?  That could be do-able along with my poem-a-day project.  SO much writing, but it would be SO good for me.  Like eating vegetables.  Or exercising.  Or getting eight hours of sleep.  [We're going to bypass the fact that I don't do all of those things...]

So writing!  Let's actually commit to practicing, shall we?

"Be yourself.  Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish."

- John Jakes