Here comes a big, fun, scary New Year

As 2007 washes away and 2008 comes rolling toward us, we have the opportunity to choose what to do with this brand new year. What will we accomplish? How will we make the most of all these days?

Chris Baty, founder of National Novel Writing Month, invites everyone to the Big, Fun, Scary Adventure Challenge:

The Challenge works like this: All of us come up with a list of things that we’ve long dreamed about doing, making, or being. These can be hard-nosed acts of practical skill-acquisition, such as becoming a ninja and learning to kill people with one’s eyebrows. Or they can be fantastical notions such as going back to school and getting a degree in business administration.

The adventuresome path or paths you choose are completely up to you. Last year, some BFS participants used the challenge to complete a revision of their NaNoWriMo novels and write their first scripts through Script Frenzy. But many of us ventured farther afield. We finally learned to speak some Spanish (that was me). We took classes in watercolor painting, started blogs, and learned to tango. We mended fences with estranged family members, explored the Amazon in dugout canoes, hiked the Great Wall of China, and made daunting leaps from soul-snuffing jobs to careers closer to our hearts.

To take part in the challenge, you just need to post at least one big, fun, or scary goal for yourself in the BFS forum of the NaNoWriMo site. Then, come January 1, we’ll roll up our sleeves, pack a lunch and a change of underwear, and set out into the unknown together.

I think I will challenge myself to write humor. My writing heroes include Robert Benchley, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Woody Allen, but I don’t write anything like those guys. I think I’m moderately amusing in person, but when I write I trim the absurd, whimsical, and mean bits away. Those are the funny bits. I’m going to let myself write more that’s silly and stupid, and if I’m lucky I will end up writing at least a few things that are funny.

Will you take up the challenge? Do it! Sign up at the Big, Fun, Scary Adventure Challenge Forum.

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