I'm not kidding. I haven't gone cuckoo. No. I'm riding the wave of excitement of everyone doing NaNoWriMo. Everyone, but me. Well, there are a bunch of other folks who don't do it either (they told me). Why? People ask me. Why aren't you participating? Well, call me weird, but I like writing according to my own schedule. I can't just jump around and write several books at the same time like other people do, and I'm green with envy, of course. But I can't, simply can't. I set my mind on the course of one story, and I live it and breathe it, I can't think about anything else, until I finish it. Then I can start the next one, and the next, and the next. And so they go. Well then, yesterday I asked folks what they want me to blog about, and they kindly obliged, telling me to write about: the rise and the fall of a mustache, pants, unicorns, flying kangaroos, rainbow farts, boneless ice cream, glitches in sims 3, extraterrestrial life under our nails, and relationships between a writer and an editor. So I told everyone, okay, I will write about EVERYTHING.

How growing a mustache can help you write a novel. The topic of hair has always fascinated me. I mean, when we're young, we tend to want to grow hair in peculiar places, to seem older, but once it does, we start shaving it. Worse, a couple years go by, and hair starts growing in places we didn't want it to, and where we want it to, it starts falling out. Life is unfair. How exactly growing a mustache will help you write a novel? Patience. It can teach you patience. Here is how you do it (girls especially). You stand in front of the mirror and grunt. You grunt really loud and concentrate on hair sprouting above your lip, imagining a long and glorious streak of silky strands, flowing in the wind, flapping like the sail of a ship, glorious in its significance. Now, you have to do this every day for 1 hour. Try it. After you have tried it for a week, try to sit down and write a novel. Grunt. Type. It's much easier to do, isn't it? Doesn't life seem fair all of a sudden, doesn't the sun shine brighter, and you DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS STUPID MUSTACHE GROWING EXERCISE ANYMORE, YOU CAN SIMPLY WRITE? Yeah, there you go. This is the effect I was going for. Now, to the pants.

Pants can help you write a novel by their seat. There is a very simple thing you can do every morning, to get yourself to write. Put on some pants and glue them to the chair. Don't forget to have your chair positioned in front of your writing desk, with either your pen and paper on it, or your laptop, or computer. You will notice how easy is it to write when your every impulse to stand up is hindered by the simple fact that your ass is firmly attached to the chair. I suggest to use pants that you're not afraid to get dirty, to ruin, or to even rip, because your first attempt of struggle against this self-imposed prison will cause you to squirm, and struggle, and stretch, and, of course, tear the darned pants. Dare I mention the urge to relieve yourself, let's say, a couple hours into your torture? Remember, I said, select a pair of pants that you're not afraid to soil. Yeah, there you go. I hear there are adult diapers you can use, but I don't recommend it. Despite the fact that your writing space is your own, you might offend your neighbors with the unsightly smell. The solution is simple. When you reach the peak of frustration, rip those pants off, do your business, wash up, select the next pair of pants to suffer, put it on, glue them to the chair, and KEEP WRITING.

Cutting your nails very short increases your word production. I know I was supposed to write about nails first, well, I was supposed to write about the entire universe of extraterrestrial life that exists under the nails of a writer, but because I'm a fantasy writer, I will leave this to sci-fi writers. I'm not good at imagining technological advances and stuff, I'm better at conjuring up complete nonsense and then dressing it up as reality. Here is your reality. Long nails hinder writing. Like, they click on the keyboard unpleasantly and get stuck in your hair when you need to scratch your head, to think, and overall they provide the perfect opportunity to procrastinate, whether it be chewing on them, or admiring your newest nail polish coat, or nibbling off that nail polish, or picking in your ear, or nose, or wherever else it is you like to pick on. Therefore, the simple solution to increase your word count is to cut your nails very short, to the roots. I hear pain adds to productivity. Good. I also hear that you're supposed to write until your fingers bleed. GOOD. Here is your opportunity. You know what, I just realized, if I keep going this direction, the rest of this blog post will turn very bloody. Let me stop right here. Let's talk about unicorns, shall we?

Unicorns can fart creativity, if you ask them nicely. Here is how you do it. At midnight on the night following the day you were born, go out into the field behind your house (if you have no field, a backyard would do), take twenty steps north, turn around three times, and stick your pen in the ground by your right toe (make sure you don't stab the toe). Now, close your eyes, concentrate really hard. Imagine silver mist of creativity issuing from your behind. If you have eaten a burrito the night before, or some other form of cooked beans, you might have better success. Soon, you will smell it, the approach of the unicorns. It is very important to bring them pickles. They like eating pickles. As soon as the warm air washes over your face, take the pickle out of your pocket and offer it in an outstretched hand. DON'T LOOK!!! You will feel soft lips touch your hand and snatch the pickle away. You must wait until all noise subsides and you can no longer hear the sound of the hooves, first on the pavement, then in the sky. Inhale, collect the unicorn fart, and open your eyes. If you see your neighbor staring at you, ignore him. Turn around, and walk back on your tippy toes. You can't walk back any other way, ONLY if you creep, will you reserve the fart. It's very fragile. Now, sit down in front of your computer. Creativity will flow. If it won't, you can send a letter of complaint to the Foreign Union of Creativity Knack, and they will get back to you within two months.

Anyway. I'm horrible. I have completely forgotten to address the issue of boneless ice cream, and, most importantly, the relationship between a writer and an editor, which is platonic, of course. It will have to wait for future blog posts. The point of this one was... I'm afraid, it had no point, or maybe it had a point that you can write about anything, the point is TO WRITE. Of course, one other point is also the fact that I'm starting 3rd draft of ROSEHEAD on Monday, and I'm scared shitless and I babble nonsense as a result. Oy.