NaNoWriMo is calling my name.

I'll admit it...I'm a deadline kind of girl. I thrive under pressure. The thrill of the impending doom of that due date fuels my creative fire. Okay, maybe I'm even a little competitive.

As long as I can remember, I have been like this. In college, lucky for me I had a roommate who didn't mind that I stayed up late. The night before an illustration deadline (I was an art major), you would find me (pencil in one hand, can of carbonated caffeine in the other) feverishly sketching my heart out until the wee hours of the morning as I created my masterpiece.

(Fast-forward three kids and many years later...)

When a friend introduced me to NaNoWriMo last year, I was totally sucked in. A seemingly impossible deadline...I could hear it calling to me. I had just started writing and this was my big opportunity to write, write, and write some more with the added benefit of the impending deadline. So I wrote. For 30 straight days. Some days I dreaded turning on the computer. Other days, I couldn't wait to get started. Sometimes I had no clue what I was writing about. I was just pounding out words. Other times the sentences just seemed to flow out like a river of dialogue that actually made sense and helped me reach my 50,000 word goal.

Last year, NaNoWriMo was frustrating, nail-biting, mind-blocking madness. Why am I doing it again? Because it was also exhilarating, liberating, shout-it-from the mountain-top awesomeness. As much as I hated it...I loved it even more.

It's the thrill of the hunt. The rush of the roller coaster. The pounding of the surf. And I'm all in again this year!

(In case you want to follow my progress, I'll post my word count here on the blog as well as on the NaNoWriMo website. My user name is wordsketcher.)

Good luck and keep writing!