JeNoWriMo

For Christmas, I got this book called "No Plot? No Problem!". It's written by Chris Baty, the guy who started National Novel-Writing Month in 1999. He used to work at some kind of massive pre-recession dotcom business, and now he's a full-time writer -- apparently the sort of man who's successful at everything he does. It's hard to stop resenting him and start reading, but read I did, and I sort of like his breezy, plebian approach to writing.

Baty claims that what's holding most people back from writing their novel is not lack of ideas, but the lack of pressure associated with the activity. When you have days -- as I do currently -- filled with uncertain goals and far too much free time, you tend to spend them reading old Savage Love columns (so many old Savage Love columns) and doing the dishes, not writing bestsellers. Baty's idea is that, instead of dicking around and getting to it eventually, prospective writers should take one month and turn it into a sort of Writing Boot Camp -- a free-for-all writestravaganza in which any words added to one's Word document are good words, uncriticized words. It seems silly, but the guy has sold three novels since he started doing this, so I guess it's worth it to listen to him.

His words are especially important because I'm coming up on a giant mountain of free time, a mountain that a deadline would probably do some good for. My final job update is this: I'm about to accept the English-teaching Kinderbetreuung job I've been offered, since they called yesterday and offered me the potential of more money if they can get approval from what the secretary called "the big boss". Plus, the babies are adorable.

However, the position doesn't open until April 18th -- APRIL 18TH; I'm currently poor, and cannot shop to fill my time; and Nader has exams until mid-March. Basically, my only foreseeable tasks for the next month are keeping myself and the dishes clean while filling out the mountain of German paperwork necessary for a work permit.

So in order to keep me away from the Savage Love archives, I should probably write something, right? I'm going to do it -- try for 50,000 words of SOMETHING. I don't know if that something will ever see daylight, but maybe that's as it should be (see: all the fanfiction I wrote from ninth to eleventh grades). This is by March 21st, when my boyfriend finishes his exams and we can have fun again instead of learning about robots and typing for hours.

Los geht's! Goal forward!

PS, Chris Baty says that the support of friends and relatives is quite important during this period, if by "support" you mean "teasing about the novel that I am or am not writing". So go on, tease me, mock me if I do not complete something! Or else I'll go nuts from German inactivity and read every sex-advice column on the planet!