I barely died.

You remember when I was planning to melt down and/or jump from a ledge during the month of November due to NaNoWriMo?

Do you remember even what NaNoWriMo means?

If so - you're doing better than most. And by most, that could include me.

See - I didn't so much not melt down as I just didn't die trying to write 50,000+ words during the 30 day span of November 2009.

In fact, I didn't do a lot of the things that the forums and people warned (threatened) that I would do. Like stay up nights typing away my sleeping time writing crap. Or go hungry while I wrote crap. Or hang out at a write-in all day and write crap. Or start bribing the dog to write some crap for me with her crap instead of me putting it in a blue bag like a normal person.

And that is just gross.

No, I didn't do any of those previously mentioned things except the part about writing crap because OH FRIENDS did I write some crap.

I mean, in the course of 50, 334 words (my number as of midnight 11/30), there's bound to be some crap. The thing is that I thought there was also bound to be some genius, or humor, or at least an interesting interlude involving my main character's three boobs - but no, there really wasn't.

Thankfully, I'm promised that all that will be worked out during NaNoEdMo which is, in case you didn't work it out already, National Novel Editing Month.

I believe it happens in March and I believe it involves putting in 50 hours of editing time over the course of 30 days and that sounds a LOT harder to do than spend half an hour or so a day writing 1,667 words (or more if you're feeling spicy) about blue boobs, two-pronged alien dicks, ways that Subway sucks (yes, like as in the sandwich place), mid-sixties models of Airstream trailers, the population of Palm Springs, California and the state of truck stops in the not-so-distant future.

Though, when I see all that written out on the screen, it seems like while I may not have 50 hours to call my own in which to edit during the month of March (our final frost date is March 1 dontchaknow), I certainly have lots of content to, um, edit.

Oh yes. I believe I could crunch away on that crap for hours and just maybe, if a stroke of genius passes over me for 50 consecutive hours during which time I neither bathe, eat or make suggestive remarks to Bubba, I *might* be able to squeal out something vaguely readable. And if I'm, like, SUPER lucky and all the stars align just so, that same readable thing might also make you laugh at least once and then shrink back in horror a few times.

It would be nice to get an audible, "Oh EW!", from someone, but I'm not going to set my sights too high.

And what are my sights at this point? Hrmmm...well, I dunno.

I'd like to think that, come March, I'll still have some interest in this absurd little parody I spliced together with dog poo and far-fetched intergalactic theories, but who really knows? By then I may be on to more relevant and captivating things like which melon to plant in the garden or WHY HAVEN'T I STARTED TRAIL RUNNING YET?

I might.

Or, I might be all juiced up to dive back into this beast and tear it to shreds, saving only the five coherent sentences for a future work of incredible, disgusting, humorous potty genius.

What's potty genius?

Who the fuck knows!

That's the great part - this future work could be anything. (And if you're a Family Guy fan, feel free to chime in here with the boat thing.) It could even be the purest example of the art known as potty genius.

What's potty genius?

See, we've gone full circle. Sort of.

Anyway, this is just me here to say thanks for hanging out with me through the month of November and weighing in with a little pep talk when my story started to take an unscheduled dive into the shitter. Not that I necessarily retrieved it from the shitter, but I did become more comfortable with the shitter and the ways that my story would inevitably lead me back in its direction from time to time and not to worry.

Also, I promise that my little novel had precious little to do with actual shit or potties. Really. I don't even think bathroom humor came up. Which is strange. And could potentially explain my novel's failings.

But I'm back now, to bore you with my mind's incessant and sometimes grotesquely inappropriate ramblings without the encumbrance of a required daily 1,667 words to write.

And, in case you're curious as to how I did it - because there are all these strategies for how one goes about writing 50,000 words in 30 days - that is it. My big secret was writing every day, for 1,667 or more words (barely ever more though) so that I wouldn't get behind and have to make up too much.

Because I don't do so well at catch-up. I'm better at just plowing through. It's my way.

And, incidentally, it's a damn fine way to write some incredible crap and come up with characters that you did not even know existed within the walls of your skull. I mean, really, where DOES this shit come from?

That there, is the key to why people can do this 50,000 word write-a-thon - if you just write and don't think too hard, things will just pop into your head and your novel will take bizarre turns for no fucking reason and BAM you've got an uncle with a dark past on another planet and an inexplicable glowing coming from the back room of his motorcycle shop.

See that! Right there? That wasn't even in my book but damn if it's not a bizarre turn.

Anyway - Happy December. I'm glad I'm not required to write 1,667 words a day anymore even though I just wrote 1,000 something for no other reason than to thank you whores for being such nice whores.

You should know there are whores in my book. BUT THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING.