NaNoWriMo? No.

I'm not taking part in National Novel Writing Month. If you read this blog, or follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you've probably already figured this out. (It's actually pretty easy to tell: if you're participating in NaNoWriMo, you've been obsessing over your word count for a week, now. If you aren't taking part, you're allowed to talk about other things. See? Easy.)

It's not that it doesn't sound like fun. Actually, the idea of devoting an entire month to a single writing project sounds kind of appealing. If your main problem is staying focused, NaNoWriMo could be a really big help. Unfortunately for me, the things that interfere in my writing-longer-projects aren't the sort of things that can be solved by "making more time for writing" or "making writing more of a priority". Yes, if writing was more of a priority for me, I could probably get a book written - or rewritten. All I'd have to do is, say, quit my job - that would vastly increase my writing time. Or I could quit taking care of my kids, and stay at the office or the library or something until after they were in bed. I'd get a lot more writing done that way, too.

But that's the problem: my time is finite, and writing isn't my only priority. It's definitely a priority - I'd be a basket case if I weren't at least putting things up on the Blog o' Doom, here - but I have other priorities, too. Staying gainfully employed? That's a big one. Not dumping all the child-raising responsibilities on my wife? That's another one. On a related note, how about not missing out on our boys' childhoods? Ditto. Martial Arts are still a priority, but guess what? They're even less important than writing, so I haven't managed to fit them in for about five years, now.

So, no NaNoWriMo for me. If I can't get novels written in the normal course of events, buckling down to write one in a month isn't going to help - and it'll probably just add stress to an already busy existence.