My brain is a hostage.

I must confess that I have quit a cappella club. I really did try to like it, since I adore singing, but I just couldn't do it. Instead, I've been going to Scottish country dancing club. I have yet to master the skip-change (the central step in Scottish country dancing), which makes for an interesting evening of Rosemary holding my hand and proclaiming in a British accent, HOP- two-three, HOP-two-three. Despite the embarrassment, it's really quite fun. Since I'm an idiot and raised my hand when she asked the everyone who had been to club night in class, I actually got to perform one of the dances for the class's enrichment today.
My novel is also coming along really well. I'm at 49,321 words, which is pretty impressive (50,000 words is the NaNoWriMo goal), considering that all my professors assigned huge projects, essays, and readings due around the same time. Of course. The problem is that I can barely make myself focus on the aforementioned work. My characters have taken my head hostage, refusing to let it think about anything else or do anything productive other than writing them. I have never written any characters as fleshed-out and real as these, and they genuinely haunt my head. When telling a friend about this "problem," she said something about the book not being real and I stared at her for a second. I'd actually forgotten that the entire story and characters only existed in my head (and in my computer, of course).
They are so real to me that, when I had to write something painful for my MC, I had to buy myself chocolate as an incentive. I've stared at people crossing campus that look remotely like my characters. I've broken down crying about the story and laughed out loud while crafting a joke. A difficulty (and blessing, sometimes) about being a writer is the intense capacity to feel. I feel everything my characters do, whether it be depression, rapturous bliss, or fury. It's wonderful and awful at the same time. Ah, well. The life of an artist.
On a different note, since I love causes but have next to no money, I was quite euphoric when I discovered GoodSearch today via NaNoWriMo. Basically, it's just a search engine that donates money to the cause of your choice for every Web search you make (and it's free!). Oh dear. I sound like an infomercial, don't I? Anyways, you should definitely check it out if you're, like me, broke but wanting to help out a cause!
Well, I'm off to write on my novel...I mean, work on my essays. Heh, heh. Oh! Before I go, I must bestow some wonderful news upon you. Instead of a cappella club, I went to a readers' meeting for my school's literary journal called Jeopardy! today. I think I'm going to be a reader, which basically means that I'll read submissions, vote on them, and critique them a bit for the magazine which sounds a lot more amazing to me than singing for an hour (sorry, a cappella. I promise I still love you! Will you accept my humble offer of vegan brownies and black licorice?).

Month of Insanity

Hello everyone! It is such a beautiful, non-November day, isn't it? It's snowy, there's no hint of Thanksgiving, and Black Friday shopping has all but disintegrated. In case you're wondering why I'm so glad it's not November anymore, I'll admit I might have done one thing too many last month. So in case you're tempted to overexert yourself in the next few months, here's a few things that should not end up on the same month's to-do list...if you value your sanity, that is:

• Read the last four Harry Potter books before going to see the movie in theaters
• Participate in National Novel Writing Month
• Confuse the characters from your own novel and Harry Potter
• Join the soccer team
• Join a new club
• Volunteer over eight hours...on one day of the month
• Go to a birthday party
• Choose classes for the next quarter at school THAT WILL AFFECT YOUR FUTURE FOR YOUR WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE
• Get addicted to a new TV show, especially if it's Doctor Who
• Go on vacation, especially the kind of vacation with television, mountains for exploring, and the Internet
• Procrastinate on multiple college essays
• Decide to tutor a friend in Spanish
• Apply for a job
• Decorate the house for Christmas at midnight on Thanksgiving
• Go Black Friday shopping
• Wake up at five...every. Single. Morning.
• Cook anything
• Drink over 100 cups of coffee

On second thought, do all of this! (I want to see if you can possibly get as crazy as me.)