"They told me, 'Be sensible with your new love...'"

All righty then. Here’s the deal: I signed myself up to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Yes, I am crazy; no, I have no freaking clue where I am going to find time to write approximately seventeen-hundred words A DAY in the month of November – or in any month, for that matter. And yet – I feel compelled to try. I have never before in my life felt the need to write fiction; I have always considered myself a craftsman rather than an artist. YOU write it, I’LL fix it. I am not kidding myself that I am attempting to write the Great American Masterpiece; after all, we are meant to write about what we know, and my life, while mostly satisfying and entertaining to me, is not the stuff of which masterpieces are created. However – HOWEVER – I may get a tolerably interesting first draft of some sort of chick-lit-y/mommy-lit novel out of this whole endeavor, so we shall see.
I no sooner considered this craziness, because a co-worker is also signed up and I was intrigued, than a plot and several characters and an outline began unfolding slowly in my brain, mostly at the most inconvenient of times. It’s hard to stop sautéing brussel sprouts to write down the name of your protagonist’s dog, and what kind of car she drives, but hey, we all have to make sacrifices. Nobody here likes brussel sprouts other than me anyway. I am only hurting myself.
I always pooh-poohed authors who said their characters took on their own life and were beyond their control; I pooh-pooh no longer. My protagonist is plunging headlong through my everyday life, informing me of the facts and nuances of her life and relationships in a most dictatorial manner and refusing to allow me my own way.

So, as I said, where oh where to find the time to write seventeen-hundred words a day this next month?
This, my schweet little ‘netties, is where you come in. I must neglect you. So sad, I know. But true, nonetheless.
The plan, as of the moment, is this:
Gina, my intrepid partner in blogging, will still be blogging. And pledge is over, so she will have some time to write, and for this we all are grateful.
And you know I can’t just leave you all for an entire month, especially one in which the event of Thanksgiving with my in-laws provides meaty grist for my blogmill.
But I will be frantically pounding out this feeble attempt at a novel.
Whose main character, while very unlike me in most respects, BLOGS.
(Remember, write what you know.)

So, perhaps the solution will be to send you on over to HER blog.
Maybe.

Or maybe I will just make myself scarce, or pull many posts from my drafts folder.

I don’t know. I have no idea how this whole effort will pan out.
I may very well come crawling back to the real blogosphere, crying and bleeding and dragging my tail behind me. In which case, forgive my absence, welcome me with open arms, and send chocolate.

I am counting on you.
Because I? Am TERRIFIED.

Hold me!