NaBloPoMo

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, and I’ve been dithering about whether or not to tackle it again this year. I have no great desire to write fiction, but I definitely got something out of doing it. A sense of accomplishment and a catharsis. I’m not famous for follow-through, so the fact that I set myself a goal and achieved it is something in itself.

I’ve not written a lot of fiction. Just three never-finished short stories, two never-finished novellas (that were collaborations with other writers), and the rubbishy NaNo novel. And the thing is, in every single one of them, there’s always a character who is a grotesque caricature of some person I once knew who fucked me over. In my fiction, that character is held up mercilessly to ridicule and then condemned to an ignominious death (or would be if I were ever to finish those unfinished pieces). It’s all about revenge and overfermented anger. Voodoo fiction. Unhealthy.

So rather than spend a month wallowing in anger, I’ve decided that in November I will do the inelegantly but hilariously named NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. (Shout out to Jane for alerting me to its existence.) Here’s the goal:

No matter what you post - pictures, poems, observations, critiques, or bald-faced lies -- the hope is that the act of putting something of yourself out for the world to see every single day will make writing become a more fluid, natural, and integral part of your day.

I do hope that churning out a post a day (including weekends!) will make my writing “a more fluid, natural, and integral part of [my] day.” And don’t worry, I won’t—no matter how desperate I become—be posting any poems. But hopefully I won’t just be posting a load of twaddle either.