It is the time of year when the days grow shorter and my internal clock sends me to the kitchen to bake. Last week, the sour dough boule and the cardamom coffee bread. This week the Swedish ginger cookies for Christmas–the peparkaker recipe from Lillian Anderson in the Hinsdale Swedish Covenant Church cookie book circa 1968. Grandmother’s wooden spoons are back at work. After the holidays, the light will return little by little, and I will get back to the manuscripts and my long list of projects. For now, let the flour fly. All will come to be in its own good time.

I have officially re-entered the world of NaNoWriMo geekdom because I care again about whether or not I’m earning my badges. This dumb badge is virtual, not even a concrete thing I can attach to anything like the junior life saving badge my mom sewed on my bathing suit (a few years ago). Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself. Yikes.

I declare myself a NaNo Rebel with this badge. The purist form of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is not my project this year. Purists start with zero words in the month of November and pledge to draft 50,000 of a new novel by the end of the month. I love that process but not this year.  I’m using my NaNo November this time to get a complete next draft of Altitude Sickness. My personal goal is another 25,000 words (or so) to expand the tear-down and rebuild draft I completed in July and to reconnect to my Big Magic. You saw it here. Now I have to do it.