June Fun

You know how sometimes you participate in daily blogging challenges for two months and then you stop, cold turkey? At first you feel all relieved, like "Whoa! Am I glad that's over! Now I can take a break!" And then maybe a few days later you feel kind of...bored...lost...sad...that you don't have any challenge in your day? And then, desperate to relieve the agony of boredom, you comb the web looking for some kind of fulfilling thing to...you know...fill your time with? Then one day, out of the blue you get an email in your old email in box that you still occasionally check, just for giggles, and low and behold, you have been invited...or should you say begged...to participate in this year's Camp NaNoWriMo by one of the very awesome head honchos over at NaNoWriMo.

And then? Oh Joy! Something to challenge you! Something new and exciting! You message a few friends asking them if they'd want to go to Camp NaNoWriMo with you and they say, "Yes!"

You wake to a new day, creative juices gurgling around in your belly and brain and suddenly last week's Cracked articles take on a whole new meaning. That tiny idea you had a month or so ago that you pushed aside because of other projects takes a firm grip of your hand and starts tugging you to the computer. Awesome bits of dialogue that pop into your head while you are taking a shower suddenly have characters who are longing to say them.

And so, looking forward to another challenge, you dive head first into 30 days and 50,000 words.

Yikes...What in the world have you just committed yourself to? Your palms grow clammy and glistening beads of sweat appear on your brow.

You take a deep breath and a new composition book - lime green because it makes you smile and think of mojitos on a hot summer evening. You uncap your pen...

And stare at blank pages...

Terrified.

Then suddenly, the slight weight of the pen in your hand feels right, the paper is just crisp enough and thoughts and ideas boil out of you. Your hand flows across the page outlining and planning, developing characters and back stories the reader will never know about, but you do. You struggle with the setting, just for a moment, then surge on.

And suddenly?

You can't wait until June 1st.