...and they're off. Maybe.

OK. So the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) starts tomorrow, November 1st. I signed up to participate, filled out a profile and everything. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

I am completely scared out of my mind.

I am scared I won’t finish. I mean, c’mon – I can’t even update this blog on a semi-regular basis.

I’m scared that it will suck. The problem with all of my writing is that I hate it as soon as I put it down. I also don’t dare show anyone because someone close to me will tell me that is does suck, I’ll lose any confidence that I had, and then I definitely won’t finish it.

I’m scared that if it doesn’t suck, that I won’t be able to sell it. I mean, what’s with all the work if I can’t sell it? Isn’t that the ultimate goal?

I’m scared that no one will like it, whether I sell it or not. I’ve always felt that my writing was always such a part of me, as silly as that sounds. I don’t like opening myself up, I don’t like being vulnerable. I am not a risk taker—at least, not where this is concerned.

Most of all, I’m scared I’m over thinking this.

Why did I sign up to do this again?

I guess that I feel that, as the founder of this contest says, writing a novel is a “one day” goal, as in “one day I’ll write a novel”. This is to get people to commit to an attempt and to reach the goal. Which makes sense to me.

I watch other authors and the juggernauts they’ve created: Stephenie Meyer, J.K. Rowling. I mean, Holy Cow, I will probably never be able to do that. They’ve changed pop culture, for goodness sake. I’m not that good.

I wish that I thought that I was. Maybe this would be easier. Maybe that’s what I am most afraid of, beyond all else:

I’ll find out that I don’t have any talent at all. Dreams are always safer staying tucked into your heart.

Opening my heart is always scary.

The Prince Charming Myth

So, I picked up the vampire issue of Entertainment Weekly last week (Me? Obsessed? No....), and read it over the weekend.

I love how almost all of the other vampire genre authors snub Twilight in one form or another. One, though, actually appreciated the buzz it's created and how it benefited her by generating interest in her novels.

Something that one of the other authors interviewed, though, caught my attention in her diss of the Saga.

Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series (which I have not read), said:

"They [meaning fans of Twilight] like the idea that (Bella) was like the fairy princess and (Edward) is the handsome prince that rides in and saves her. The fact that women are so attracted to that idea -- that they want to wait for Prince Charming rather than taking control of their own life -- I find that frightening."

Uh...What?

OK, I kind of see her point. I also kind of think she's cracked.

Maybe I can help. Here's my take.

Bella was a lost soul -- an old one, perhaps, but still a lost soul. So was Edward. Together, they completed each other. He didn't "save" her from finding her own life. She found her life -- and took control of it -- when she found him. She was the one pushing her way into his life, while he feared her presence in it, wanting her to pursue a more human existence. He "saved" her from the villain in the first book, she saved him from himself in the second, he saved her from the villains in the third, and she saved HER ENTIRE FAMILY in the last book, her new husband Edward included.

The attraction that I think women have to this story is the desire to find that one person that completes their circuit -- the Ying to their Yang, as it were. It's the same theme that most love stories have. Who, on earth, wants to wander this life alone? You always want to think that there is a companion out there for you, whether he's from another time (Outlander), another species (Twilight), or just a good ole' human.

Twilight is not about a girl pining for marriage and then -- viola! -- a man enters into her life who just happens to want the same thing -- marriage to a girl pining for him.

This isn't Cinderella, Ms. Hamilton. Of course, this really isn't about Prince Charming, now is it?