You know that October feeling. November is around the corner. It’s your turn to put on the dreaded Thanksgiving Dinner and you’ve been afraid to open your refrigerator for weeks. And, if you’re a writer and can’t help yourself, November 1st is the start of the dreaded National Write a Novel in a Month campaign, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. Both inspire a particular emotion: FEAR.
On the refrigerator front, I’m not just talking the occasional science experiment shoved to the back of the shelf, or The Madonna stalactite spanning three shelves in the freezer, call up People Magazine and the Pope kind of fear. I’m talking can’t cram another thing in, night of the living dead, get out the fire hose, finding your grandmother’s upper teeth in a microwave-blistered piece of Tupperware, never want to go into the kitchen again of terror.
[Come on, peeps, you know who your are!]
Sort of like opening up that novel manuscript you wrote last November during NaNoWriMo. Fifty thousand words in a month, no internal editor, no order, no throwing s#it out? This refrigerator looks the cleaning day at Martha Stewart’s compared to the one I drafted.
I have a confession to make: I…sort of…like to clean out refrigerators. There’s something satisfying about throwing out old food, pulling out all the drawers to see what’s really, really there, shifting shelves, buying shiny new containers, and finding grandmother’s teeth. In fact, I had the pleasure to clean the refrigerator for a friend last month as a special treat to help her recover from shoulder replacement surgery. (It’s a lot easier to throw out other people’s food than it is your own, by the way…hum, let’s see, maybe I can cut that mold off the cheese and use it in a quesadilla? Um, no.)
My last year’s Nano Novel, One of a Kind, inspired by the infamous Little Bastard of James Dean fame, is almost complete. Yes, I did have to throw some s#it out, and use the fire hose. But, damn, it’s a fun read and I’m proud of it and I can’t wait to share it.
You can catch a sneak peak over in the book tab under Coming Soon.
PS: I am taking reservations for refrigerator cleaning appointments. All expenses paid, and bonus trip to Kauai in advance, please.
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