Okay, so how dated does the title make me?

Anyway, I’m sure most of my writing buddies out there know about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The goal of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days must seem like self-flagellation to some people. I don’t think I could ever do it.

However, I did, for some strange reason unknown to me now, sign up for it two years ago. Because of that I am still listed as a NaNo participant for Idaho. So before November 1st, I got an email discussing a write-in being held in Idaho Falls. I considered going, and when I mentioned it to my wife that I was thinking about it, she announced, “Great! I can go shopping while you’re doing that.”

Not quite the response I was anticipating.

I ended up going to the write-in the first Saturday in November at a little coffeeshop called The Villa. Nice place with good atmosphere. When I first arrived there were a couple of ladies in line for coffee with obvious notebook bags. Holding my trusty writing folder, I found that they were there to NaNo. We ordered and adjourned to a separate room to don our quills and write away.

I was the only guy initially, but soon a couple of other brave masculine souls showed up. We had nice introductions. “Hi, I’m Jason, and I write action/suspense. Who are you, and what do you write?” I was the lone computer-less person, although another gal had problems with her connection and had to switch to old-fashioned paper.

We had a good time connecting with other crazy writer-type people. We decided to meet again the following Saturday. There was a little attrition, which should be expected. Gained another guy (yeah guys!) and got some more writing done. I’m not going to vouch for the quality of writing, but there is official ink on paper documented.

I’m not officially trying to do the whole NaNo 50,000 word thing. It has just been nice for a little accountability to sit down and write with like-minded folks. Also, shutting off the internal editor and just doing it is another benefit. I know there’s a lot of crap in what I wrote, but it also is helping me plot and see how the scenes should go.

Anyway, that’s my writing life the last few weeks. I’m grateful for the camaraderie and accountability. So if any of you haven’t been writing lately, close the web browser now, and open up your file and WRITE!