Well, that NaNoWriMo entry sparked some enthusiasm. I wonder if my insulting response to the comments inspired anyone to sign up for it? I really should be nicer to my friends. If I made New Year's Resolutions, I'd make that mine this year, but I don't, so I'll just make a mental note and file it away between, "Stop smoking, stupid" and "Climb the pyramids."

Someone write and asked me if I really intend to go through that again. I still don't know, okay?

I spent, at a guess, 100 hours of office time on last year's effort. I don't have 100 hours to spare this year, so I'll have to cut into those few precious, "me time" evening hours this year. Not surprisingly, I find it easy to commit to wasting my employer's time but not as easy to agree to waste my own time.

I have books to read, book reviews to write, television to watch (not much of that), friends to see, Christmas shopping to do (it's November, after all) and daily, 30-minute I'm-doing-it-for-my-butt-okay? walks to take. I also have to bathe, eat, clean house, do laundry, and call my mother. (Okay, I don't do those last three every day, but when they need done, they need done.)

There's also this complicated diet thing. I can no longer go home and settle down happily with half a bag of potato chips for supper. Now I have to eat healthy food and the single most irritating thing about healthy food is that it has to be purchased fresh two or three times a week (add "grocery store" to the list of near-daily tasks) and then cooked up every evening. Which, naturally, produces a correspondingly larger pile of dishes that have to be washed every day.

I swear, I don't know how women with full-time, outside jobs, husbands, and kids manage it. I can't wait until I'm thin (well, thinner) and can go back to occasionally stuffing prepared food into my face to save time.

Anyhow. What I thought I'd do is go home tonight and take a look at last year's manuscript effort to see if it inspires in me any desire to re-write or finish the story. If not, I have a couple of weeks to think about whether or not there's a different idea I'd like to work on or at least one that leaves open the possibility that I could write a few reams on it without much effort.

(Of course, I'm not ruling out last year's approach. Last year I thought of a character name and then wrote a story for it. Like I said in the 'comments' section, it's a lot easier to write if you're not concerned with quality.)

On a list I'm on, we occasionally discuss the idea of writing 'romance novels' in the Harlequin or bodice-ripper tradition. If all else fails, I might do that this year. It would be m/m, of course. I think an m/m bodice-ripper would be fun to write, don't you? I mean, you can't use up five thousand words discussing 'heaving bosoms' but that same space could be much better filled with a description of sweaty chests anyhow. (Not to be all sexist or anything, of course. To each their own.)

Secret to NaNoWriMo Success #1 – Always write a story with sex in it.* It's easy to insert a sex scene every five or ten pages and you can drag most of those scenes out for 3-5 thousand words. This is key when word count is all that counts.

Secret to NaNoWriMo Success #2 – Always start with a virgin. Last year my virginal hero soaked up around 10k words just thinking about losing his virginity.

* For those who, like myself, get hives from writing sex scenes, let me assure you that it's a lot easier when you know no one will ever read it. You can be as contrived, as hackneyed, and as formulaic as you want.

Anyhow, it's all academic at this point. I really don't know if I'm willing to make the commitment.