Maybe it’s a little indulgent but I bought myself a Nanowrimo present before finishing the project. After all, inspiration is key to completion. Just keep it filled to the brim with coffee on writing days and parked on my desk and everything will be just fine. It’s fair warning to hubby: when this mug comes out, he needs to tend to the pot and stay far away from the over-caffeinated writer. I’m a little bit behind after a couple of busy days keeping a social life, so it’s back to the book for me.

I am now an official NaNoWriMo rebel! Chances are if you are a writer, you know about NaNoWriMo . It’s all about commitment – writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I wasn’t going to participate this year. I didn’t want it to interfere with my memoir writing process. But, I discovered a way around that. I can be a REBEL! Some may say this is cheating but the bottom line is this – there is a NaNo Rebels forum buried in NaNo Groups. That’s the place to confess that you might not be writing the crappy NaNo novel. It is there that I have revealed my quest for this year – I will be revising my memoir. Every hour I spend doing revisions, or writing new chapters, will count as 1,000 words. It’s okay. It’s been approved by the powers that be per the FAQs.

Now I feel the need to make another confession. I have completed NaNoWriMo three times. My 2012 novel, Mayleen, is fiction based on how I wished certain things had worked out in my life. The other two were based on my autobiography. The interesting thing about that is the titles of these previous attempts: Always 49 (2004 – I’ll never grow old) and You Don’t Want to Know (2009 – stuff that probably won’t end up in my final memoir). My current working title is Never Let Them See Your Tears. This is the one that is meant to be published someday. Notice I said “working title.” It’s likely to change again once it is done.

Now that things are a bit more serious, and my current goal is to finish my first draft by the end of the year, I’m taking this opportunity to cheat my way through NaNoWriMo for the month of November. Challenges work for me. So, call me a cheater if you must but it’s much more enticing to be considered a rebel.