Rather, No Edit November

My new name for NaNoWriMo is No Edit November. The words are falling out of my head so awkwardly. Are you sue you want this? Have I really been thinking about these characters and world for years? It does not seem so.

But I do want it. I have no idea where this sentence is going. I look up the page and find something stupid. I quickly move my text cursor, delete, rewrite. Well, I failed again.

It’s Day One, and it’s a slog. I am not used to trying and failing at new things, failing spectacularly. I rarely give something a second try. My big stupid ego immensely limits the human chained to it. If something doesn’t click quickly, I move on. But I can’t move on from this. I don’t want to.

I glance at my email. An email from NaNoWriMo and author Anne Lamott awaits me:

“You either start now, or it is not going to happen for you, and you are going to wake up at seventy years old (or eighty, if you are already seventy) filled with sorrow that you let your dream, your passion, gift, fall by the wayside. You start now, as is.
‘As is’ is the portal to creation, to new life.”

I close the email, get back into iA Writer, and keep trying. Keep failing.

Because I want it. But for the love of all this is good and holy, do not hit backspace this month.