I've got to be out of my mind!

I said I wasn't going to do it. I told myself that last year was a fluke, a year of destiny never to be repeated. I was standing strong, dedicated, determined. My past was behind me. My future staring me in the face...

I am not doing National Novel Writing Month this year. What, have I got a death wish or something?

Sure, it was exciting last November. The fact that this wierdo actually got through a 50,000 word book in less than 30 days is amazing (I still have my winner's certificate and my picture of the word count saying 50,000 words, but I've yet to frame them). I count it as one of the truly awesome events of my whole life. I set out to do something that was, as Kevin Costner puts it in Field of Dreams, "highly illogical". And I actually followed through and did it! My book, On the Fritz, is really quite a good story. Truth be told, it's not really finished in the "God did it all in six days and then rested and declared it all good" kind of finished. It has a great beginning and a superb ending. The middle is still a little off. I actually re-visited it mid-summer to redo the middle. I expanded it a bit and thought it would work, but it didn't. It's actually a tad longer now. Probably close to 52,000 now. But it's still not really "done". I also thought of turning it into a screenplay. There's about 15 or 16 pages of that on my hard drive, though it's really not good. I probably would need another set of eyes to do that.

I was awoken this morning at 5. Nablina's purring (not to mention a thrilling view of her "pinkhole") first caught my attention. Then, Rachel's bony little foot kicking me in the stomach added to my anxiety and startled emotional state. But as I lay in random states of conciousness, a thought crossed my mind:

Go downstairs. Log on to nanowrimo.org. Sign up to participate. Write another book. Call it Declan Rummel's Dark Ride. Do it. Don't be a puss.

I know, that's a lot to get all at once. What can I say? Dinner must've been very spicy last night. But I'm trying to listen to the odd thought more and more these days. Anyone can walk through life and not do the "odd thought". What fun is that? Where's the adventure? The risk? Now, obviously, I'm not going to just do something freaky for the sake of being on display. But there are so many things I want to do during the rest of the time I have here on earth. I want to preach and teach the Word of God. I want to publish a book or have a movie made of a screenplay I write. I want to write a song that people use to worship God. I want to go to a baseball fantasy camp. I want to drive a new car - just once. I want to go to Australia. Even with my "Don't ask yourself what the world needs..." mentality, it's incredibly easy to get caught up in the day to day BS. So, every now and then, throw life a curve...or at least a 3-1 slider that gets the hitter out on his front foot and even if he doesn't swing and you walk him, the next hitter has no idea what you'll do if he gets in the same situation. As a true movie icon, Ferris Bueller, said, "Life goes by fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it." Not me.

So, I guess doing Nanowrimo is a necessity, a mandate, huh? I'm being summoned unto the high ground of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Ok, ok, ok. I'll do it. Now can I go back to sleep?