NaNoWriMo

I took on the challenge of writing 50000 words in a month. November is NaNoWriMo—which, to me, sounds like some sort of high tech space gadget or star wars character. But, as my sister informed me the other day, it actually stands for National Novel Writing Month. You write a full novel in one month, hopefully slaving day after day in the coffee shop of your choice, while attempting to find a new way to describe the mole on the bottom of Aunt Lulu’s foot. Actually, hopefully you’re describing something more interesting. As for me, well… we’ll see what gibberish my pen unleashes! In college I had a professor who studied intellectual disabilities—

Sidenote:” intellectual disability” is the new term coined by Obama to replace “mental retardation” (interesting how different phrases come into use…I’m hoping he soon replaces “cool” with “jiggy”)

Hhmmmm…back to the original subject—In college I had a professor who studied intellectual disabilities in literature. He looked at 8 or 10 different pieces of classic literature, and attempted to discern whether the books dehumanized the mentally challenged characters or whether they humanized them, hopefully giving them a meaningful role in the story.  That’s my challenge this month… to give humanity to people who can’t often speak for themselves or who have trouble communicating these thoughts—not that they actually need me to do this. Anyone who spends any time at all with the intellectually disabled knows that they don’t need my help to be humanized. But if I can make a difference in one person’s views, if some naïve know-it-all (a description of me before I met some of my best friends!) can be humbled by whatever character I may present, well then, perhaps it will be worth it.

p.s. I noticed there was a lot of "they" in the previous paragraphs to describe the intellectually disabled, and for this I apologize. My prayer is to use the novel to turn the "they" into a "we", which may sound cliche...but maybe that's all right. I often think "cliche" is just a word we use in our individualistic pride when we feel as though our thoughts and words are higher than the thoughts and words of the general populace. If it's right to be cliche, then please, by all means, be cliche!!!!