perhaps, I have gone insane

My husband may try to convince you that this happened long ago. But humor me a moment and assume that, until very recently, I was still perfectly (ok, mostly) sane. And if you happen to find my mind, please notify me immediately and kindly point it back this way. I'm rather attached to it. But why have I gone insane? Surely you want reasons. Well, there are two...

1. Tomorrow, I will participate in Dewey's 24-hour Readathon. (If you'd like to find me and/or follow along with my progress, I'll be posting to Twitter.) I realized yesterday that it was happening, and though I'd decided this spring (it's a biannual event) that I had no desire to ever participate in such a thing, I signed up. Mostly because I am currently reading five different books. Yes, five. And one of them I'm reading as research for a book I hope to start writing next month, which leads me to...

2. I signed up for NaNoWriMo*. If the previous point didn't convince you, this should confirm that I am, in fact, whether or not I was before, insane. Why? Because I don't write fiction. I write blog posts, and poems, and I have been known to write articles (most of which have been published), and I hope to write more articles. But a novel? Mmmm, nope. I studied journalism because my writing tends to be... concise. Overly so. It's hard enough to write two pages with existing information -- pulling 50,000 words out of thin air (my mind has fled, remember?) sounds nearly impossible. Ah, see? Nearly. Perhaps, after all, I can do this. Maybe I don't need my mind.

*For those of you lucky souls who have never come across this acronym, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is November, when anyone crazy enough to do so pledges to write 50,000 words -- an entire novel -- in one month.

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What do you think? Have I indeed lost my mind? Would you care to join me? (Or perhaps you already have!)