Column Extra: National Novel Writing Month starts

If I were to have a nemesis, it would be time. It is my mortal enemy, my fierce competitor against all other considerations.

How much time do I have to write this? To design this newspaper page? To spend time with my girlfriend Jess, or with my mother or father? What about writing for myself?

As much as I fight against my lack of time to accomplish everything I want to do - a constantly growing list of items, mind you - I find myself also struggling to save time. It’s the same problem Batman has with the Joker. You eventually have to save what you’re fighting against in order to see whats important to you.

Even though I beat down time with my bare fists, I always end up saving it from the edge of the cliff.

How ironic then that I add something onto my plate people might be just in saying is insane: a 50,000 word fiction project to be completed by Nov. 30.

This is National Novel Writing Month, an ingenious self-motivated competition meant to drive more people to write and complete writing projects.

Started as something small on the internet, it has since blossomed into a full-fledged international phenomenon, where writers young and old gather to show off their word count to fellow scribblers. If I could make a good analogy here, it would be the same as racking up points against an opponent on the football field and not feeling bad about it.

The last time I actually completed NaNoWriMo (the shortened version, think nano-rye-moe for pronunciation) was way back during my junior year at Auburn, when I sat in the back of the class and filled notebook pages with a bad first draft of what I titled “Stuck in the Elevator.”

I spent night after furious night through the month of November that year typing what I filled in on the college ruled pages. Thousands upon thousands of words, with some minor editing and additions done along the way.

As Thanksgiving came around, I was close to my 50,000 word goal and celebrated with excited commentary about the piece to my mother. She smiled, nodded along and said she was proud of my accomplishment.

Ever since, I’ve struggled to sustain myself over the course of a month. The closest I came was 2010, where I penned 20,000 words over the course of a few weeks of November, but then worked picked up again and I gave up. None of it connected or made sense.

The only time I’ver ever met the challenge, I did it on the spur of the moment. I feel I can do it again, with a little help from my friends and encouragement from the masses. It also helps to keep a constant schedule of when you’re allowed to write something.

My time will be from 10 p.m to Midnight, and as the witching hour falls I’ll put down the pen and let the creative juices be influenced by the muses. Whatever happens in the dreamworld will have to wait until the next’s days time period. That’s how it works.

I started out the first weekend of National Novel Writing Month without much production, to be honest. I maybe jotted down a thousand words between the first two days I was lucky.

Though I don’t want to share a whole lot about the work before I get myself on track to run the gauntlet of that much writing, I will say it has to do with a phenomenon of people living through whole generations and seeing the events of history played out, one child to the next.

It started with this particularly interesting factoid for the masses: the grandson of President John Tyler still lives. A number of years back when my grandparents traveled around touring the homes of presidents , they stopped by the Tyler house just in time to learn that a C-SPAN camera crew were there that day to film a short documnetary about the house and the Tyler family.

My grandmother, who is no longer able to twirl around like she used to, joined Tyler’s grandson in their ballroom during filming of the Virginia reel. If you can find the original video online and look closely, you’ll see her dancing along with those dressed up.

Those interested in trying to figure that one out need merely Google.

So join me on this latest journey as I try and tackle a new novel. I’ll keep you all posted on the progress of this new project of mine.

Check back during the holiday season for exceprts from Myrick’s work-in-progress novel.