NaNoWriMo starts today! Here I am in front of a text editor, fingertips hovering over the keys.

I’ve always been a private person. The apt listener, the last person to volunteer information about herself at a party, who will offer an opinion only if asked. Instead of talking, I write. There are notebooks tucked away in nooks around the house, ensuring that should a thought come up that needs recording, there is always one within reach. A dozen filled ones hide in plain sight in a decorative box on the living room floor. My thoughts have always been my own refuge. This blog itself is a challenge to maintain. Putting my words out there for others to discover is frightening.

And now, a novel? A first draft of a novel. Novels have characters, settings and plot. But to find its voice, for a novel to be written, it needs a listener. Francine Prose explains that one of the obstacles of writing involves understanding narration.

“This hurdle disguises itself as the question of voice and who is telling the story (should the narrator be first or third person, close or omniscient?) when in fact the truly problematic question is: Who is listening? What occasion this is story being told, and why?”

For someone who is unaccustomed to being a talker, suffice to say, this project is more terrifying than it looks. Even if no one ever reads it, the whole exercise will be a test. Are my thoughts, the trove of wonders and experiences I’ve cherished since I became conscious of my own independence, worth consuming? Would they make sense if I attempt to put them down in a communicable format? Would they as valuable to others as they are to me? Does that matter?

In addition to writing for an audience, I am also learning to speak to an audience — my computer. To protect my hands from the 50,000-word mountain ahead, I’m using my speech recognition software to do the grunt work. Writing something so personal for others is awkward enough. Hearing it out loud feels silly.

Now that I’ve gotten that bit of anxiety out of the way, it’s time to suit up and get my game on. Never let it be said that I backed down from an opportunity to improve myself.