I’m pleased with how NaNoWriMo is treating me – or perhaps, how I’m treating it – this year. As of right now, I’m behind, but I’m so much further along than I’ve gotten in the past several years that it isn’t even funny. Well, maybe just a little bit.

By the end of the day today, if I wanted to be all caught up, I ought to have 15,003 words written. That’s nine days, 1,667 words a day. I told myself I’d write 2,000 words a day, since I knew I’d probably miss a day here and there (starting with the first day of the month, wherein I felt too ill and tired to do anything but read); at that rate, I ought to be pushing 18,000 tonight. I’m sitting comfortably at 11,197 words. It’s not unrecoverable. (Is that a word? I feel like it ought to be irrecoverable, but I’m thinking of irrevocable, which is the – well, no, it isn’t the opposite of what I mean. I must need a nap.)  

Still – I’m past the 20% mark. I’ve earned my multi-colored arm warmers of wonder and joy, and if I can write 1,303 words this evening, I’ll get to have a champagne nightcap. (I figure, why not have a glass of cheap bubbly every 25%? Since they’ve been so accomodating as to start selling it in tiny, overpriced, one-serving bottles…)

The point of all this is to bring up something I read today. But first, a confession: I’m the sort of person who did mental backflips of sheer unadulterated joy when I was the 42nd person to initiated into a marching band fraternity. Yes, I’m that sort of a NerdFighter. I admit that I carry a towel rather less frequently than I ought to, but I’ve got Babelfish in my bookmarks and think Wikipedia is pretty much the Guide-iest thing ever.

Plus, I have an intellectual crush on Neil Gaiman. I won’t admit to an actual crush, because that would just be too cliché, wouldn’t it? I mean, who doesn’t have a crush on Neil Gaiman?

So naturally, I’m reading Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Neil Gaiman. I worried it might be dull; instead, it’s the sort of book that makes English teachers snort out loud during Silent Sustained Reading. What a perfect biographer for this particular task…

Gadzooks. The problem with NaNoWriMo is that you start to say something relatively simple, and 400 words later you still haven’t managed to get around to it. You lock up your inner editor for a month, and what do you expect to get?

What I’m still trying to say, is that I read today that The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was written in (wait for it) four weeks.

If Douglas Adams could write The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in four weeks, then I think I can write the second half (part?) of Wyrd in four weeks.

And with that, I leave you with a paragraph from the opening scenes of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – a book I first read at an entirely impressionable age, and a paragraph which, I fear, may have forever colored my philosophy on life, the universe, and everything:

This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

By Tom Gauld – h/t Drawn

Bold the things you’ve done. From Jessica…

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars (I’m assuming “in a tent” doesn’t count)
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain (If you don’t define “climb” or “mountain” too strictly)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted by your mother
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in movie
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check (electronically…)
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar and discovered it’s a yucky waste of money
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone.
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (if self-publishing a very limited run counts)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House (tried, but was all locked down in 2004)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club (for one meeting, in which we didn’t discuss our book)
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a mobile phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

If you’re going to do (or try to do) NaNoWriMo, I’d love to be writing buddies. What’s your username? You can find me at Kate Monster on the main site. I was going to use my teacher log-in, from the YWP, for my own writing, but decided I wanted an identity independent from my work life. Go fig.