For the entirety of the month of November, I will be a hermit. I will have no social life. My grades will slip (a little). I will scream profanities at the heavens for hours on end. I will eat a great deal of unhealthy food, and question my sanity numerous times. I will finally understand what new parents feel like. My life will cease to be my life.

You don’t need to panic, really. I’m not doing anything truly awful.  I’ve just officially registered for NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is the abbreviation for National Novel-Writing Month, an event that occurs during the month of November where writers around the world decide to write an entire novel (totaling 50,000 words) in the course of a month. So, I have decided to be one of these writers for the next thirty days. Certainly, this is a reach for any writer, especially one who is also attempting to keep up with four classes and blog once a week and work-out regularly. I will be reaching new and rarely heard of stress levels that will have me ripping out my hair. It’s something I’ve been considering attempting for five years, so why now?

There are several reasons. One is that a few of my close friends are planning on attempting it, so I’d like to do it with them. Also, I’ve got a real, concrete idea for a single novel, and it’s a chance to challenge myself as well as accomplish something simply for my own pride. I’m actually really, truly excited by my idea, and it’s not even a multi-book fantasy series idea! It’s just one novel, and the more and more I think about it and brainstorm about my character the more excited I get! My feelings towards my idea are what most writers would do anything for. And I can’t help but fantasize about what it’ll be like to have tens of thousands of words of ONE story. I’ve never had that before! But it at least seems attainable.

Really, my attempt at NaNoWriMo is similar to what students of other majors should be attempting. It’s something well beyond my reach that I hope to complete, but I’m not sure I will. But writing this novel will help me become the person I want to be post-graduation. I feel like I’m trying to bring the future to myself right now. Heck, I think it’s worth it.
And when things get really bad (meaning I’m low on caffeine and the Motley’s closed for the night), I’ll just remind myself that the characters on this season of Downton Abbey have it much worse right now.

Here’s a link to the NaNoWriMo song, written and performed by Kristina Horner (which I’ve been listening to on repeat): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhs-yodZJcw]