As you probably no doubt remember, we’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year. As I sit here, we’re a full one-third of the way into the NaNo season, and things are very interesting. As you can see by my stats, I’m actually doing very well this year – far and away better than the last time I participated in this hellish nightmare of words, words, WORDS, back in 2007. I’m much more engaged, much more excited, and much more productive than I ever was previously, and that’s amazing, because if there’s one thing that is incredibly difficult to do in NaNoWriMo it’s, well, everything I just mentioned.

Most of that has to do with my incredibly lovely and talented wife, who, you can see by HER stats, is COMPLETELY BLOWING THIS THING OUT OF THE WATER. She’s hitting the keyboard hard, and she’s digging in, and setting personal reward goals, and is being all determined and everything. And it’s adorable and motivating and I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time. Even when she’s frustrated by her characters misbehaving in her story (happens more frequently than writers care to admit), she finds a way to smile and just dwell in the sheer ridiculousness of pouring out creativity and thought and inspiration onto a page and letting it somehow melt into a story while it air dries.

But we’re still in the honeymoon phase. The first third is the easiest third. I’m just shy of hitting the halfway point in the word count (though I’m already near the end of the second act of the story, so who knows where the final count will end up, honestly). The wife is already well into the thirty-thousands. We’re going to make it, I know we are, but we’re going to be drained and broken by the end, and December will be spent trying to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and trying to sort out the mess by Christmas.

(That was obviously an extreme exaggeration, but you get the idea.)

In any case, we took a break to go see  Thor 2 and have a nice dinner, just the two of us, so we can keep ourselves grounded during this madness. We’re making our daily word counts, and in the end, I think we’ll end up with either something we’re proud of, or something we’ll toss in the drawer, never to be seen again. And then, we’ll probably do it all over again.

Because we’re insane, you see.