Anybody want to tell me...

how it got to be FALL all of a sudden? It seems to me that it was summer just a few days ago. Sigh. I'm working diligently on...writing a novel. Yeah. That's what I said.

Maybe somebody out there in dollyland has heard of NaNoWriMo?

First of all here is a little something they put out on their site:

What in the world is that, you ask? Well, it stands for: NationalNovelWritingMonth. See? What do the underlined letters make? NaNoWriMo, of course! Thousands (I'm not kidding) of people all over the world pledge to write a novel in a month (November)—the folks who designed the project calculate that 50,000 words constitute a "novel" in this context at least—at high speed, throwing as much caution as you can muster to the winds and just letting the words flow. Some few people in the madly typing mass of would-be novelists are actually in pursuit of fame and fortune. The rest of us are mainly doing this to try to unclog the pipeline so some real work will be released, once we write something that is total trash and nobody expects more because of the breakneck speed at which we are working. If you divide 50,000 by 30, what do you get? *madly keying in the numbers in my online calculator* Well, this is what you get: 1666.666666666666666666666666........................... and so on, words—wait for it: A DAY. 

Now if this were say, TALKING? I would have my quota of words out before breakfast and the rest of the day would be, you know, like, free. But it isn't really like TALKING unless someone were following one around with a tape recorder hoping to pick up something wonderful falling from one's lips. I'm lucky when nothing disgusting, like crumbs or something, is falling from my lips. One must actually think up and type that many words every day for 30 days. *runs around room screaming and tearing out hair—making cat look funny*

But I digress. In this wonderfully freeing idea that no one is going to actually read, or even more horrifying, grade or in any way critique my, um, "novel" I can write any and every little thing that comes into my so-called mind. So far, there's actually a sort of murdery mystery sort of thing evolving, taking place last century, in the '60s in Louisiana, just north of Lake Pontchartrain (I even learned to spell that by writing this "novel"—proud of me yet?) in the swamps of the Pearl River. Because I've got an asignment of sorts but no one is going to grade me except on actually writing enough words and doing it for thirty days running, and I could write "Pontchartrain is a lovely lake" 10,000 times and make my quota, instead I do what I've tried to do before but failed. I could write an actual mini-book (50,00 is not a very long book after all) telling a real made-up story with a plot that goes from point A to point A and a half (knowing me) and it would still count. The whole idea of this deal is: You break through all your fears and bad habits and fears and laziness and fears... You get the picture?

And it becomes easier. You don't worry. You just think and type. I used to make up stories when I was a kid home alone having to entertain myself. But the minute I started trying to write them down? Ayeeeeee! Someone might see it and, you know, laugh and poke fun and say, "I suppose you think this is a real story or something." and I'd have to say, "Yeah, I think it is something but mostly it's something like nothing...you know, it sucks and all, and l can't really do this and I know it's an abomination and I should never even look at a crayon again much less a typewriter (yeah, we had those back in the day) and okay, I quit."

But this is fun and I'm having it! So. I'll get back to dollies again soon...MY soon, not necessarily YOUR soon, okay? I've got to do this. It's kind of like writing this blog but more like the blog would be if it were, like, say, a novel. Heh.

Love to all and the dollies and their doings and possibly I will get back to them soon, and even start sewing them some glamourous duds and making patterns for same and like that... I know, promises promises. Well, you never know. I never thought I would be 15600+ words into a novel either. Here's my wisdom of the day in a slogan wrapped in an enigma, etc. etc...."Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first!"

This is just a short 30-day "dessert" detour. You've been through those and even longer hiatuses—or however the plural goes—with me before. So, see you again back in Dollyland soon! (That's my idea of "soon" etc. etc. see above the paragraph above this paragraph...um, above.)