Inspired by all this talk of NaNoWriMo, I decided I could at the very least write a short story, unpadded. Understand, now, that my previous forays into fiction of any kind are all long behind me for very good reasons. My method basically consists of just diving in and writing, making up characters as I go along, making up the story scene by scene. This does not work. I seem cursed to always end up with characters I like, dialogue I like, and absolutely no frickin’ plot to put them in. I set the memory of these past agonies aside, however, keeping in mind that “aiming low is the best way to succeed.” (Genius, I tell you.) And the strangest damn thing is that it seems to be working. I’ve written almost 2,000 words since Wednesday (I’m also very slow) and the thing hasn’t yet managed to derail itself. Remarkably, I seem to actually have some idea where it’s going, but not too much. Just enough.

I had forgotten just how amazingly life-affirmingly joyous a thing it is to write something longer than two over-parenthesized sentences.

Tangentially related: Participants in NaNoWriMo from the local metropolitan area: Three. In the entire state of South Carolina: Two. (And he had to move to Charleston…)