Content: Ode to NaNo

Photo Cred: NaNoWriMo.org

I’m back from not-hiatus, and ‘TIS THE SEASON, FRIENDS!

When someone new gets to know me, there are three undeniable truths about me that they generally pick up in the first three days.

1. My favorite animal is undeniably, vocally, incontrovertibly, emphatically the majestic and graceful sea turtle.
2. I can’t tell a short story to save my soul.
3. NaNoWriMo is my own personal month-long holiday.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, or NaNo for short) is an annual challenge to write 50,000 words toward a novel in the month of November. It’s like a fiction writer’s equivalent of a marathon. You train for it. You prep for it. You do it. Then you sleep.

More about NaNo in this post from nearly a year ago! Suffice it to say, it’s one of my favorite events for many mushy-gushy reasons I’ll explain in a few weeks. A little-known fact about me, however, is that I was excited about NaNo long before I ever endeavored to try it.

That’s right. I watched the month of November roll by for several years before I finally took the plunge.

Today, in my Facebook memories, proof of this resurfaced in the form of an ‘Ode to October’ I posted in 2011. To set the stage, this happened a precious few days before I took said plunge and signed up for NaNo, persuaded by a friend. When I posted this, the idea was still just a pipe dream, something I’d always do ‘someday.’ The project hadn’t saved a passion of mine that was dying. It hadn’t made me some of the best friends I’ve ever had. It hadn’t given me a place to cultivate my leadership skills. It was just a ‘someday.’

The ode itself is actually quite terrible, but given all that context, it really warmed my heart. I hope it warms yours a little too.

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Ode to October:
Each year, fewer words flow from my fingertips
To the most beautiful of all canvases, the blank paper before me.
Each year, less notebooks are filled with the lines and curves
That build empires and give birth to people so enticingly real
I can almost feel their presence beside my chair.
Sweet October, with weather so gorgeous for plotting,
For dreaming the existence of these wonderful empires.
With endless hints of NaNoWriMo dropped in my presence
Calling me to rekindle the passion of putting pen to paper
For just one month, one November, one impossible challenge
One year, perhaps this one, I shall listen to your call.

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Happy NaNo season, everyone!

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