oceandoggy.com

So yeah.

I’ve made it halfway. If I was running a marathon I’d be sucking down juices and wolfing energy bars and wondering why the hell I’d ever started this in the first place.

Oh wait.

I am and I am, except the juices are coldies and the energy bars are, well, more coldies.

I was going great guns and then on Friday I had a drunken energy bar moment and somehow forgot to save like 1200 words. Then, on Saturday, Miss Carol and me joined some friends on a boat ride to a pig-pickin’ and when I got home I tried to write and it looked like this-

thijeuuo, wnnoeihrfla;, owoowhiiok

So I gave up.

When I awoke on Sunday, I was facing a 4000 word day just to catch up with the ever relentless word count that is NaNoWriMoandMo.

I honestly didn’t think I could do it, I was painting the big L on my forehead when Miss Carol said, buck up little buckeroo. Man up, you can do it, she said, waving her pompoms.

So I sat down.

And I did it.

I wouldn’t wanna do it again, but I DID it, I caught up.

So, yeah, I’m feeling pretty awesome.

I just completed day nine of my NaNoWriMo, which means my word count is somewhere in the 14000 range.

My fingertips are uber-sensitive after typing that many words and the keys on my keyboard are shiny with use and hot to the touch.

And I wonder if it would be too chick-like to say that I’m plumbing depths never plumbed, that I love peeling away these layers of me and applying new lipstick to what remains.

It wouldn’t, would it?

Be too chick-like, I mean.

Whew.

What a ride. I wouldn’t suggest everyone throw themselves up against this NaNoWriMoShit, but it sure is working it’s magic on me.

One of these days, I’m gonna sit down and write a long letter- Neil Young

Folks, I’m goin’ on an adventure.

National Novel Writing Month is the birthchild of somebody or a group of somebodies somewhere and it’s something that I’ve thought about tossing myself up against for years. And every year I found lots and loads of reasons not to do it, mostly ’cause not doin’s easy, right?

NaNoWriMo is a marathon writing event. It’s a solo sail around the world, solitary climb of Mt. Everest, grueling triathlon event for those of us who don’t do those things. A sedentary marathon, if such a thing exists. Think running a 10K EVERY DAMN DAY for  a month, with nobody watching or caring. WHO does that?

Julicoolio, stop waving your hands.

The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. For the mathematically challenged, that’s 1666.66666666 words each and every day and it’s something that scares me not just a little bit. (Put in perspective-my crappy posts average 250-500 words and take me 2-3 hours to spew.) And even though there are no winners or losers, only finishers, once entered, I’m gonna have to finish, so, yeah, there are big parts of me wondering why I even want to attempt NaNoWriMo. So.

Big breath.

Truth is, I’m stuck. I’m mired in my me-ness. I write this oceandoggy.com stuff a couple a three times a week but not much else. Every night, if it’s not too late when I’m done, I’ll open up other stories I’ve been pretending to work on and I’ll stare at them bleary and beery-eyed and blankfaced and promise myself I’ll work on ’em TOMORROW.

And the tomorrows keep rolling relentlessly in ’til the string stretches out and you find yourself thinking, yeah, I need this jolting forcefeed. So that’s why I’m doin’ it- even though it might sound a death knell for my little blog, or, worse, that it’ll pound a stake into my heart of dreams I’ve held dearly dear forever.

As far as my goofy blog goes, I’m gonna try and post as often as I can while I slog through the daily 26 mile run and 110 mile bike ride and the ascent above the clouds, but I just don’t know how much gas I’ll have left.

Stick with me.

See you in December.

I’ve got a problem. Or maybe, probably, more realistically, problems.

Like with this, I mean, these.

And, yeah, these are my problems too.

And, hooboy, I definitely have tons of problems with these, I mean this. (see what I did there?)

But, honestly? my biggest problem is with these.

Books.

I love books. I love their feel and their smell. I love their fonts and their paper and their content, and I love how their authors’ open up their hearts and souls and let me revel in ’em and roll around in it.

I love them books so much that every Sunday I live to prowl the New York Times bestseller list and reviews hunting down new books that Amazon.com’ll bring home to me.

Which is normally OK, ’cause I normally kinda keep up with what I buy.

But lately, what with everything swirling around me, not the least of which, did I mention, I’m a trucker now?

No?

Well I am. So, yeah, I’m falling behind.

And I’m watching the slowly cresting wave of soft and hardcover bound pages of words rising up ever higher in my Me Only Room and I’m wondering how and if ever I’ll catch it.

But I know I gotta, ’cause there’s more comin’ where they came from, and I love them.

So, yeah, it’s a problem.