There are lots of noises downstairs.  Doors slamming, people talking.  Loud, squawky radios like the ones policemen carry.  Dad's yelling again.

I wish I had been in the balloon.  I wish I could have floated far away.  Away from the cameras, away from the shows.  Away from Dad.  Well, not really.  Not away from Nice Dad or Science Dad, but away from Mean Dad.  Maybe Mean Dad will float away someday and leave real Dad behind.

They're calling my name again, but I have to be quiet.  I have to hide.  "Stay in the box until I open it, Falcon.  Do you understand?  It's important, because it's for the show."  I remember nodding, but now I don't want to stay in the box.  I want to fly away.  It's dark, and I hear lots of strange voices, and it's noisy outside, and I'm hungry, and I'm scared.  And I don't feel good.

Please, Dad, find me soon.

I have never written a novel.  The concept of writing 50,000 words as part of a single story frightens and overwhelms me.  I have a lengthy short story that should probably be expanded into a novel, and I have received a lot of encouragement from people who have read it to do just that.  I know several people who have successfully written full novels during NaNoWriMo, and some of them are just as busy as I am, so I really don't have much of an excuse.

My wife is also considering participating in NaNoWriMo this year.  She has a great idea for her novel, helped along by a writing retreat she attended over the summer.  Today, a co-worker told me he is going to try to write a novel next month.  This is good, because I think it would be easier to stay on track if I'm sharing goals with someone both at home and at work.  I know there is plenty of support and comaraderie in the online community, but it's not the same as physically being in the presence of someone doing the same thing I am doing.  (This is why the NaNo community has so many writing get-togethers, I think.)

Participating in NaNoWriMo would require some significant changes in my life.  I would need to add significant structure to my day, something that needs to be done anyway.  I would need to power through the inertia that keeps me from writing.  I would need to compartmentalize the project to keep from being overwhelmed (a big challenge for me.)  I think the thing that frightens me the most (and hence, the thing from which I can learn the most) is that I would need to turn off my inner editor and just write.  When I'm writing fiction, I have a tendency to rewrite as I go, rather than letting the words flow and revising them later.  On a tight schedule where I would need to average nearly 1,700 words per day, I would not have the luxury of editing as I go.  In the process, maybe I would learn that 50,000 words is not as daunting as it sounds.

If I'm not careful, I might talk myself into this.

(Nothing to see here ... move along.)

I am: Ursula K. LeGuin Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Yes, it's a completely non-scientific, silly little Internet quiz, but I'm flattered nonetheless.

Announcement #1:

I have joined an elite group of bloggers on the www.100wordsaday.com website. The premise behind this site is that eight writers explore daily life in posts of exactly 100 words. Writers don't have to post every day, but between the eight writers there should be at least one post of 100 words every day. All posts are non-fiction, but creativity is encouraged.

I saw the notice about the open blogger slot on Craigslist; I have no idea how many people sent samples to the site, but of all the submitters, I was chosen. I guess the site owner liked my samples.

I look at this as a great writing exercise. I've played with the 100 words concept before, but that was fiction-based. I'm looking forward to creating occasional 100 word posts that are not cryptic, but still tell a story or express an opinion by themselves.

Announcement #2:

Today, my stepson (Logan) will be competing in the Colorado Virtual Academy (COVA) spelling bee in Castle Rock at 2:00 PM MST. COVA is a publicly funded home-schooling organization that uses the K12.com curriculum, and since its students are home schooled, they are scattered throughout Colorado. Logan already competed in and won his regional COVA spelling bee last month, and today's bee will bring all the regional winners from around Colorado to determine who will represent COVA in the Colorado State Scripps-Howard spelling bee in March. (In that sense, it's like a district spelling bee in a traditional school setup.)

Last year, when Logan was going to the Pinnacle Charter School, he won that spelling bee and qualified to attend the Scripps-Howard bee. Unfortunately, he didn't make it past the written round at state, and this is the last year he will be eligible to compete, so we're hoping he will do well at the COVA-wide bee today.

I will be attempting to live blog Logan's progress via my phone on my Facebook wall, if anyone is interested in following along. (Feel free to add me as a friend if you have a Facebook account. The same goes for Twitter.)

Okay, before anyone jumps on me for having my priorities out of whack, yes, I do think there are much higher priorities than legalizing online poker, namely ending the war in Iraq, closing Guantanamo Bay, fixing a drastically broken health care system, and bolstering an economy that's currently flying without a net. However, legalizing and regulating online poker could conceivably have a positive effect on the economy.

Here's what I had to say in the topic contents at Change.gov:

As an accomplished poker player himself, I hope that President Obama recognizes that online poker is more a game of skill than a game of luck, and that legalizing and regulating online poker is just one more way that people can infuse money into the flagging economy. Millions of Americans play online poker already, and the money that could be made from taxing those online games is a staggering amount.

As I write this on a Wednesday afternoon, just one of the online poker sites is hosting nearly 175,000 people on over 42,000 virtual tables. Imagine if those 42,000 tables were hosted by an American company and taxed at $1 (for round numbers), along with any other tables that are generated on that site each day. Then consider that numerous American companies would be in this business space and the number of Americans playing online poker would easily increase with the repeal of the UIGEA, and it's easy to see how regulation and taxation of online poker could generate millions of dollars *per day* to benefit the economy.

Or, we could keep the current system, continue to force banks to reject transactions that they could be making money on, continue to stigmatize skillful online poker players while honoring much more random Internet gambling systems, and continue to encourage an offshore shadow industry with no oversight.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

What do you think?