I wrote this many years ago; it’s a monologue told from my mother’s perspective about my interests in writing.

Michael…Michael…Michael.  You always amaze me, Michael.

You are going to be the next Stephen King. Don’t doubt me – your mom is always right.  Where do you come up with these offbeat ideas? You know, Stephen King probably started just like this…then, he probably thought “hey, I can do more than just write newspaper articles, I am going to write a book.”  Then he wrote Carrie.

I’ll bet that Mr. King probably laughs at some of his writing when he wrote newspaper editorials like this. Not to put down what you’re doing at the newspaper…I meat its great practice.  I mean, baseball players hit balls in batting cages…see where I’m going?

I don’t know why you’re laughing at me, Michael. I’m serious here. I know you keep saying you don’t want to write books like Stephen King…but that’s probably what John Grisham used to say.  Until he got big.  As soon as you get a taste of what real writers taste, you’ll be begging for it.  Just you watch.  Your mom is always right.

Do you remember when you were in high school and you did that report on that Truman man?  Truman Capter…oh yeah, Truman Capote. Do you remember that, Michael? You did that report where they made you write a true-life story like that Truman man did? Since that day, I knew that you were going to grow up to be my own little Stephen King.

Did you know that this Truman man was gay? I’m serious…he was. I saw something on the Bravo Channel about him. He was. And, I think that he lived a really hard and horrible life because he chose that route. I don’t feel that God told him to choose that route.  But…well, if any of my children told me that they wanted to be gay I would still love them.  Because they are still my children.  But, I don’t think that it’s right.  And your mom is always right.

In dusty boxes I’ve found hundreds of pages of things that I’ve written – most of it pretty bad and inedible.  Some of it is funny.  Some of it isn’t.  Yesterday I found a sheet of paper with the following typed at the top:

And that’s it.  Nothing else.  I have no idea what I was writing.  A movie script?

I was about to type out a short story I wrote when I was 18, but as I was typing it I couldn’t fight the urge to edit and decided just to delete the whole thing.  Maybe another time.

I did it.

Pitted against a merciless deadline and battling hordes of distractions–including the most tempting fall TV season that’s been unleashed upon novelist in decades–I kept at it.

I’ve done something amazing this month, and to be frank, I couldn’t be more proud of myself.

Now I’ve got to worry about re-writing this piece of shit novel.

In the last week I’ve fallen so behind in my NaNoWriMo novel.  To prove that to you, I’m here blogging instead of writing a novel.  But look at some of the interesting stats I’ve come up with (instead of writing):

I’m about 4,932 words off of my goal right now because of the last few days.  Luckily I don’t have to work Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  I’d really like to wrap this thing up by Sunday.  I just need to find the motivation.  I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.

I’m just over half way finished with my 50,000 word novel.  I’m ending tonight at 50,011 words.  I’ve had  a rough weekend when it comes to writing.  Everything has been distracting me.  Hopefully the 2nd half will all be down hill.

I’m a data nerd, so I’ve been keeping track of the number of words I write per-day.  The graph looks like this:

And I’ve also kept track of the number of minutes I spend sitting at the computer…which means I can make a graph like this one:

As Daniel points out, this graph isn’t actually my typing speed, but it’s an average of how many words I typed per minute for the day.

I’m going to do it.  Again.

NaNoWriMo is pretty intense, if you do it right.  And it’s totally time-consuming.  And rewarding.  And stupid.

I wrote a novel in 30 days back in 2004 about a guy that works at a nursing home.  Then I repeated the process and wrote a shitty novel in 2005 about a straight guy that worked in a homo-saturated industry and had to pretend to be gay to get ahead…Twelfth Knight rip off .  And then in 2007 I tried again.

This time I’m serious.

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, hook up with me on the site.  My profile is located at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/82575

If you are thinking about doing NaNoWriMo, but aren’t sure, here’s a little list I found on WriteToDone by Leo Babauta:

Just a few reasons to do NaNoWriMo:
1. It gives you the motivation to finally write that novel.
2. It teaches you some good habits — getting writing done every day.
3. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re put to the test like this.
4. Like I said, it’s tremendous fun to join up with so many enthusiastic writers.