NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month, or "NaNoWriMo," as it's called.

I can't stand that abbreviation.

TungMaiHairHol.

While I can see the bizarre charm of periodically engaging in a style of writing that values quantity over quality, I just don't see myself participating in the insanity.

For those still unaware of what NaNoWriMo is, it's a contest in which, beginning on November 1st and proceeding relentlessly thereafter, all contestants are engaged in the struggle to craft a novel of at least 50,000 words. Many people discover (as I'm sure I would, were I to engage in this folly) that they lack the testicular fortitude to take it to the finish line. Such people drop out. It's a Darwinian process of self-selection. Of the ones who crawl or skip or mince or pirouette or otherwise fart themselves across the finish line, only a select few will have produced anything remotely worthwile.

I'm currently keeping track of Charles's efforts over at his Workshop. By his count, his novel weighs in at 2848 + 2292 + 2322 = 7462 words. Charles is a writing beast. A machine. A veritable Terminator among writers.

Lorianne, not content merely to write a novel but to offer running commentary along the way, has started yet another blog: Get It Written. Hey, Lori! Since you're currently at 3,018 words, I'd say Less commentary, more writing! Charles is kicking-- your-- ASS! This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue!

Guess I'll just sit back and watch the frenzy.

If I were to write a novel, I'd begin it thus:

Chapter One: The Still-uneaten Feces

Maggie heaved her massive form onto its side. She peeled her eyes open and stared blearily across the basement floor. Her eyes settled on a plastic basin in which sat a large pile of shit. Maggie's gargantuan buttocks flexed involuntarily, starting up a concatenating series of ripples and vibrations. Ugly moles all over her body trembled like earthquake-ravaged villages as the fat undulated seismically beneath them.

With a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan, Maggie Gundersen, a hunched and wiry-haired woman in her early fifties, managed to right herself. She scratched her head absently, then sniffed her fingertips-- one of her standard morning wakeup rituals. An itch under her right breast prompted her to slide her hand beneath the saddlebag-shaped tit to find the source of the tingle. Her fingertips felt along the moist recesses until they located an odd bump that hadn't been there last month. Curious, Maggie focused her senses through her fingertips and gingerly traced the bump's contours. At first she thought the bump might mean cancer. All bumps equated to cancer in her mind. But no: the bump, her fingertips informed her, had a huge hair growing from it-- a hair that had never seen the light of day.

I dare ya' to come in after me, said the hair.

Speaking of light... Maggie hated light. She winced and squinted resentfully at the sunbeam slanting through the basement window. The sunbeam was like a heavenly commandment: God's way of telling Maggie she needed to get the fuck up now. Maggie snorted, turned her head, and spat across the basement. The loogie phutted almost reluctantly out of her mouth, morphing into a series of vaguely doglike shapes before splatting wetly on the concrete floor about ten feet away.

Little did Maggie know that her skills at spitting would be saving her life in the next five hours. For the moment, all Maggie knew was that she was trapped in this basement against her will, and that that plastic basin, already full of shit, was about to get fuller.

Yes, world: Dump Time is upon us!

Maggie grinned. She was fat and slow, but not completely dim, and she'd already begun to formulate a plan against her captors, who were currently upstairs, in her house, drinking her beer and eating the food out of her fridge.

Soon they'll be eating the shit out of my ass.

Maggie struggled to her feet, lumbered over to the basin, dropped her pants, and squatted. Like Pavarotti about to begin an aria, Maggie's fissured, crusty anus opened wide.

_