I have said it a hundred times…writing is a very difficult thing to be in love with because it is the MASTER of unrequited love.  It knows I need it, and yearn for it, therefore taunts me unmercifully from the dark corners of my mind.  I let it have all of me everytime, just hoping, and clinging to the prospect that my craft will provide for me one day.  If writing were a person I would clean its house, cook its meals, and ,make it a scrapbook of what our future best-selling covers may look like.  I’m a desperate, available woman to my keyboard.  I can’t wait to come home and make the keys dance a little because it just pleases me so damn much…and now I have discovered that November is National Novel Writing Month (cue the caffeine).  The challenge is to complete a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  Why did I just envision myself dressed as the annoying girl from Grease rushing to the front of a line, trying to be first to a sign-up sheet? 

I’m an addict.  I must accept this challenge…Now let’s look at the facts. I have written one novel already (that took me about four years) which remains unpublished.  I have a full time job that takes up the better part of my week, and I’m already checking my email every three to five seconds to see if agents have responded to my query letter.  I’m on the verge of lunacy, approaching the climax of my need to take writing to the next level and now decide to put another novel (that I have 30 days to write) on my plate???  Yep, sounds like it.  I can’t resist…my lover knows just how to bait its hook so that I bite everytime, and man, it likes to watch me squirm.  My conclusion?  So be it.  Sometimes we have to push our limits to succeed.  This must be the thing my Mamaw means when she tells me I can do anything if I “lay in there and grind”.  It gets gritty, it gets messy, and it gets to the point that we go so hard for what we want that we forget the pain.  We keep grinding and we keep going.  I have to accept November’s challenge.  If I keep writing and keep beating down the door’s of agents, I’m going to get there.  I want it badly enough to just shoot the rejection like stout whiskey.  It may not be smooth, but I’m going to swallow it and move on.  I will not let myself down.  I WILL conquer that impossible lover of mine, and when I do I will know a victory sweeter than I’ve known in my wildest dreams.  If my knees drag pavement, if my fingernails rip from my hands, and if my shoulders dislodge from the sockets, I will not let go of my dream no matter how hard it pulls against me.  I’m just going to lay in there…and grind.  November, here I come.