Even though I’m very sad about not doing it this year myself, NaNoWriMo was one of the key things that taught me how to start fighting back against my perfectionism when I first participated in November of 2005.

I’ve done it three times since then, and successfully completed a horribly raw and unedited 50,000-word novel twice. And I don’t think I’ve ever found a better—or more fun—crash course in how to throw your inner critic out the window (or at least lock her/him in a closet for a while).

So it’s worth stating again how heartily I endorse this program. If you’ve never heard of it and you’re intrigued, or if you have and you’re on the fence about participating, NOW is the time . . . because it won’t come around again for another year!

If you have specific questions I can answer about NaNoWriMo for you, feel free to post them in the comments below or send me a private e-mail at the address in the very bottom line of my “About Me” page. I’ll make a point of checking that at least a few times today and tomorrow.

I also want to make two offers for anyone who’d like to get involved . . .

If you do NaNoWriMo this November and would like a personal cheerleader, I’d be happy to be your NaNoBuddy via e-mail. You can send me your word counts if you want to keep yourself gently . . . ac-count-able (heh). Or you can just check in with me and tell me how it’s going, and I can reply with hearty cheering-you-on messages and any advice I can offer.

If you’d like to be part of this adventure of literary and creative abandon, but don’t want to actually, you know, write a novel, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Office of Letters and Light, the parent non-profit which runs NaNoWriMo and other beneficial programs—many for children.

There’s something in it for you if you do, hopefully. A very good friend of mine is doing NaNo (again!) and she’s personally raising funds to get into a special Write-a-Thon here in San Francisco on November 22. If she makes her stated goal, she will not only get in herself, but she’ll be able to bring one guest.

That will be me.

If she raises enough to qualify us both to attend the third annual “Night of Writing Dangerously,” I promise to blog from there and give you an insider’s view of the unbridled thrills and excitement. Maybe I can even take a little videocam, record a few brief interviews with other writers, and post them here. (I haven’t included a video in a blog post yet! Hmmm . . .)

Oh, if you’d like to donate, you might want the link:

Donate to my writerly friend’s NaNoWriMo fundraising page here! Just click the link and then the “Sponsor Me” button (after reading her lovely page, of course).

So there you have it, ladies and gents.

A fantastic month-long chance to play with imperfection begins tomorrow.

You can join in if you’re inspired to.

If you do, you can take me up on my offer to be your NaNoBuddy.

And/or you can donate to the cause and hopefully get me in the door to blog from the Write-a-Thon itself.

Or none of the above. Of course it’s up to you. But I couldn’t resist one more reminder that NaNoWriMo 2009 starts at MIDNIGHT TOMORROW! )

For the past several days, just half a block from my Bill-Paying Job in San Francisco’s downtown Financial District, a small blackbird has achieved international fame by persecuting pedestrians and entertaining onlookers. Swoops, as the bird has been affectionately named, is simply protecting his newborn chicks. It is a perfect collision–literally–of the natural world, technology, and our human desire to connect and share with each other.

Feathered defender of your nest, meet the Internet.

My roommate and I stopped to watch on our way to the BART station after work today. Sure enough, there was Swoops, vigorously living up to his moniker. People were taking pictures with their cell phones. Some even had small video cameras. We watched for several minutes, along with the small yet ever-changing crowd which now congregates at SGZ (Swoops Ground Zero), then grinned at each other and headed for the subway after a close call when Swoops briefly zoomed over to our (opposite!) side of the street.

I didn’t realize until I got home to check YouTube that our neighborhood dive-bomber had become internationally famous. He even has his own dedicated blog.

In fact, should you find yourself in the Bay Area and wish to stop by Front Street between California and Sacramento to see the show (for however long it lasts–apparently these chicks will soon leave their doting parent with a case of Empty Nest Syndrome), Swoops’s dedicated fans at the Chronicle have even provided some handy suggestions on the proper Attack Bird Viewing Etiquette and Best Practices. (No, I’m not kidding. Click on it–you know you want to.)

Nothing profound here . . . or maybe I’m just too tired to come up with any profundity tonight. I simply wanted to share a perfect little San Francisco oddity which is quite literally happening around the corner from me.

Signing off,

A Swoops Fan