Uncle!

Ok, I give up.  Officially.  I know, I know, there are still 28 hours left, but there is no way I'm going to prolong my agony any longer.

I'm talking about National Novel Writing Month of course.  The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November.  When you break it down, it's only 1667 words per day.  Yes, I said only.  Technically it's about 7 pages of 12pt font, double spaced.

"That's easy," you say.  I'll admit, even I said it.

I participated last year and afterwards, I swore I wouldn't do it again.  Call me a glutton for punishment.  I must have forgotten the agony I lived with because yes, I signed in again this year and figured if nothing else, I would at least get a head start on my newest novel idea.  I swore I wouldn't allow myself to sweat the word count.

I don't know what it is about NaNoWriMo.  There is nothing competitive about the activity.  (Aside from the friendly rival between areas and the screen that shows how many words your writing buddies have written...)  But for some reason, I feel the need to keep up.  Unfortunately, since day 2 I found myself behind by anywhere from 2-4,000 words.  Everyday the distance got larger until finally, with only one more day to go, I am behind by 17,000 words.

I'm out of steam.  I have over 500 e-mails to read, I've got Christmas shopping to do, rooms to clean, laundry to wash, dry, and fold and some friends and family to reconnect with after 30 days. 

There's one good thing to the whole NaNoWriMo 2010 experience.  I've learned that sometimes you just gotta know when to say, "When."