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National Month for the Writing of Novels

I think I’m going to commit to this NaNoWriMo thing for November. Really, I’ve always had a problem with producing large volumes of material, and a pointless challenge is as good a way as any for me to confront and hopeably overcome that particular problem.

Really, the main thing in upping my productivity to the required 1,600 words per day average, is to sleep less. I love sleep. I think that probably the most successful people in the world are the people who don’t love sleep nearly as much as I do. Or maybe they have a love-hate relationship with sleep. They’re all like, “Hey sleep, I’ve missed you” and spend one beautiful night together in catatonic rest, and then never call again for a month. I need my sleep all of the time. Sleep is starting to feel smothered.

I’ve been practicing, by sleeping less. For the last week, I’ve been getting up at 6:30, when I generally wouldn’t need to be up for work before 8:15 or so. This is me getting ready for the big race. I’m already feeling it, after barely a week. I am tired all of the time. I was expecting this to subside; in fact, the whole reason I started getting up early last week, was to make sure that I was adjusted to my new sleep schedule in time for the big game. Instead, I suspect that I will spend the month of November in a zombie state, shuffling from place to place, bashing out voluminous trash on my keyboard. I’ll get more sleep in December, when I’m editing. The real trick with a first draft of anything, really, is to finish it.

For those who say you can’t polish a turd, remember this:

the trick is not to polish a turd, but to cover it in foil and paint it gold.

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