Bum Glue: the true secret of (Nita's) writing: We Are Not Alone

I like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the same reasons I enjoy running in races. It's about being with others. We participate together, side by side. And although in NaNoWriMo we're each competing to get to 50,000 words and secretly hoping to write the magic number quickly or secretly hating the people who get to 50K without much effort at all, we're really only competing against ourselves. And most of us, loners that we are, need a structure to help us find other writers.

It's wonderful to know people who share our common goal. We’re so different and yet in November we come together for a common purpose. The books of my fellow wrimos differ greatly from mine. I typed 52,203 words of memoir about - you guessed it - running. As I wrote about buying my first pair of real running shoes and learning tricks to avoid chafing in awkward places, my friends wrote about exploding coffins, children growing up in cemeteries, historic race wars, time-eating space machines, and dystopian scenarios I can't even begin to wrap my head around. Yet at the numerous write-ins, we were all together writing away.

A community helps us know we're not alone. When I sit here writing, I am alone, but there's this whole field of people behind me. On the back of my door in my office, I have pictures of photographs of women writers I admire. This includes many very famous writers such as Natalie Goldberg, Anne LaMott, Toni Morrison, Anne Patchett and many others. It also includes less well-known writers such as Tania Casselle, Martha Crone, Sammi Soutar, Deby Dixon, Wendy Drake, and Jamie Figueroa. These are the people who have my back. These are the writers I admire whether they've ever published a book, so much as a single line of anything, or nothing at all. These are my colleagues and my commiserants. We take care of each other.

On December 16^th, when I toe the line with a few thousand other folks in Indianapolis for the Santa Hustle Half Marathon, I probably won't know any of the other runners. And it won't matter. I’ll stand out in the cold with like-minded people and be happy. When the starting horn sounds I'll run as hard and fast as I can, but that won't be my primary goal. That race is just an excuse to hang out with a bunch of other crazy runners dressed like Santa. We just want to be together.