It is day 7 of NaNoWriMo (day 5 for me, since I came in late) and I have written just over 10,000 words. What I didn’t mention in my previous post is that I’m not actually writing a novel, but rather a memoir. A memoir I’ve been meaning to write for years, but never got around to starting. I had a very unusual childhood, you see, and there is much memoir fodder there. Being as narcissistic as the next person (and we poets tend to be extra narcissistic for some reason), I have gone on assuming that my adventures (and my thoughts about them) would be fascinating to readers. I may be dead wrong, but I won’t know until I write and try to publish the thing.

What really pushed me was being in LA with my fellow editors, all of whom have a book just out, or forthcoming, or are writing proposals for the book they’ve finished writing. And then there was me: owner of one unfinished poetry manuscript (technically it’s finished, given the number of poems in it, but I’m unhappy with a huge chunk of it, so…unfinished) and no other writing project on the back burner. Not only that, but I have done virtually no writing since graduating over a year ago. I find it very hard to motivate myself to sit down and put the sweat into it–I need real deadlines. And it’s all too easy to let my editing duties (and actual life) take up all my time. But I also want a book to sell. I figured NaNoWriMo, which includes a website on which you register so that others can follow your progress, is as close to a real deadline as I’m going to get.

So far, it’s working. I’m writing 2000 words a day, which is more than the pace for finishing a 50,000-word manuscript by November 30, but I have some making up to do. Besides, 50,000 words is a pretty short book, so I’ll probably want it to be longer than that. And, I’ve found that I am a speed demon when it comes to writing prose. It may be terrible (I don’t know — I haven’t gone back and read through what I’ve written) but it only takes me 1.5 hours to write 2000 words. The beauty of memoir is that I already know the plot and don’t have to think anything up. It’s all spilling out in a flood of words.

Next up: Digging all the skeletons from my family closet, and other teasers.