NaNo officially kicked off this morning at midnight. I attended the kickoff event at Country Kitchen and, as the minutes ticked down, my self-doubt amped up. What am I going to write about? Is it a good enough idea to carry me through 50,000 words? What if I don’t like my characters? What if I can’t write anything good down on paper?
Thirty minutes to go:
Eating a mushroom and cheese omelet and chatting with a fellow writer about our ideas.
Twenty minutes to go:
Indigestion immediately settles in and I question my choice to eat as my stomach rolls.
Ten minutes to go:
I’m madly thumbing through my character cards, deciding on my first lines and considering launching myself across the table and making a mad dash for my car. If I started driving now, I could make it to Mexico before morning. Oh, they have NaNo in Mexico, too? Drat.
Five minutes to go:
I’m resolved to writing. My idea is percolating and so full of promise. I pull up Pandora and tune in some 50s doo wop music – my playlist for my novel set in the late 1950s.
Three minutes to go:
Everyone else looks so confident. What am I doing here? I’m not even a real writer!
Two minutes to go:
I pull up a blank word document. The blinking cursor taunts me.
One minute to go:
The room is full of nervous laughter and the buzz of anticipation. I feel hot, then cold, then hot again and wish I would have opted for something cooler – perhaps a tank top and ice pack. Standing at the precipice…
Three…two…one…midnight!
Headphones in and my fingers are flying across the keyboard. Here’s my first character getting ready to meet my title character.
1:20 a.m.:
I have written 1,799 words of my next novel. And I love it. All the uncertainty is gone and I am in love with my characters and the world I’m creating.
It’s going to be okay. And, by November 30, I’ll have my newest novel: Rhodesha Jefferson Buries Her Shoes.
Happy writing! 🙂
Adria Waters 
Great Start! Keep Calm and Write On!
And wait, I’ve read your stuff… You ARE a real writer.
Haha! I suppose I’ll always doubt my writing abilities on some level – is that a writer thing, I wonder? 🙂
It’s pre-release jitters. I kept thinking “What am I doing?” until Tortured Dreams released, at that point, I had to change to “Wow, other people read my stuff… I’m a writer.”