i am the cheese

Ladies and gents, it's high time for an announcement. I will be participating in NaNoWriMo 2013 (National Novel Writing Month). For those of you who don't know, this is a . . . thing . . . where you try to write 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November. Yes, my description was so writerly I probably knocked you all on your ass. It's not a competition, unless you count competitions with yourself. Sort of like running . . . while sitting down!

Why? Why not? I'm tired of wishing I could write a novel, when I'm perfectly capable of actually writing a novel. No, this doesn't mean it will be the Great American Novel. It doesn't even mean it will be any good. But it will be a first draft of something that I wrote and hopefully finish, and I think that will be extremely empowering.

What does this mean? It means that I will probably be a wreck in November. Don't go expecting magical prose from me in November (because I usually provide such witty repartee). It means I'll be drinking an absurd amount of Dr. Pepper. It means I will be writing every. single. day. It means that I'll be typing away on the most absurd machine on Earth. It means that I'll need sanity breaks, and Barro's breaks, and Barro's write-ins, and Barro's. It means that I probably won't be very nice if I'm not reaching my word count and that I'll reach manic levels of happiness when I'm succeeding.

How am I preparing?

• Plotting *cue maniacal laughter* and outlining my story.
• Setting up a back-up system so I don't lose my novel-in-progress to evil file corrupting minions.
• Getting ahead on my schoolwork.
• Getting together a writing playlist.
• Nailing down every bit of my schedule.

What is the story about?
 Ugh. I knew I couldn't post this here without you wanting to know what I'm writing about. And I know I'll get this question a lot in the next 30 days. But ughhhhh I don't want to. Just know, it's character-driven, it's set mostly in Hawaii, and if you want to read it, too bad!