Goal chaser or outright failure? Only NaNoWriMo knows for sure

A 30th birthday can be a good time for a hearty self-assessment. An opportunity to look at your list of "I wills" and see if you can't knock a few off.

In our 20s, we're the ultimate procrastinators. Accomplishments can always be tackled later. Running that marathon? Yea, one day. Taking those three months off to travel the Outback? Sure, when I have money.

And it's no big deal - 20s were invented for worry-free entertainment. No need to get bogged down with heavy aspirations just yet. We'll follow our dreams…eventually.

But I've come to realize that some goals require a less sedentary approach. Some goals require effort.

For a long time, one of my lofty aspirations (that I never saw fit to seriously pursue) was to write a book. (Yes, me and about 800,000 other people.)

I have no delusions about being the next great American author. Or being on a best-sellers list. Or even publishing it at all. But I wanted to write a book anyway, even if it never went further than my laptop.

I've made some meager attempts over the years. When I was in elementary school I wrote an outstanding short piece titled "The House on the Hill of Oblivion." I don't think I knew what "oblivion" meant then, but I cut the pages into the shape of a house, so there's that.

In college I built up an impressive collection of first paragraphs. None of those efforts made it past the 1,000-word mark and all of them stunk.

But I'd always start off so well inspired. I would tap the keys for an hour or so, come to an eventual stop and think, "I'll have plenty of time to write when [insert future date, season, age or other arbitrary cornerstone"].

What a happy coincidence, then, that I recently heard about NaNoWriMo. The lengthy abbreviation stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the "month" just happens to be November. The event began 10 years ago in San Francisco when a fellow named Chris Baty decided writing 50,000 words in 30 days was somehow a good idea.

The event is international now, and thousands participate in the 30-day mess of words and coffee and anti-social mania (including over 600 of our fellow Mainers).

Between you and me, I think my introduction to NaNoWriMo was fated. Destiny. Meant to be.

So with confidence ablaze I signed up on nanowrimo.org.

If you haven't done the math in your head already (and why would you? That's what calculators are for. You think you're better than a calculator?) 50,000 words in 30 days breaks down to just over 1,600 words a day.

There will be days you don't write at all and days you write more, but 1,600 is a good gauge of progress. And the goal isn't to have a finished masterpiece at the end. Just 50,000 words. The intent is to kill off (or at least temporarily comatose) that inner critic who's regular insults usually prevent you from writing more than a page. Just type. Don't fret over it.

I sat down on the morning of Nov 1 bloated with enthusiasm. I sipped my poorly made coffee and started typing.

After typing and sipping and typing…and pausing and rereading and pausing longer…and typing and stopping and starting a load of laundry…and doing the dishes and making some phone calls and washing the bathroom floor…I checked my word count:

700.

Damn.

(Just for reference, this blog entry is approximately 700 words. I wrote it in about 30 minutes, which means I'm 100% capable of churning out the text. So the problem, I ask, is what?)

Sunday I sat down to go at it again and wrote another 100. But then I decided to write a blog about how I can't seem to write. (Okay, so I haven't mastered NaNoWriMo just yet, but at least I have Irony down to a science).

I'll keep you posted on the NaNoWriMo progress. Unless, of course, I fail. In which case we'll never discuss it again.