It’s an honor and a privilege to be counted among this year’s half-marathoners. I’m a first-timer here.

I may one day feel equipped to take on the 24-hour challenge. In the meantime, isn’t this exciting!

My secret dream is to be a published novelist. I don’t have grand literary aspirations; I don’t want to write the great American novel. I just want to finish something people will buy. Like a category romance or a historical. Then continue to do so repeatedly until further notice.

Despite said cherished dream, for some reason poetry comes to me more easily than novel writing. Not that it is ever really easy; it is always hard work to produce a finished poem. But at the inspiration stage, it just seems to flow, whereas, when I sit down to work on one of the many novels I carry in my head, I get so caught up in plotting, and naming characters, and getting facts right, and other necessities, that I almost never achieve the effortless flow of original wording that I experience when a new poem has me by the muse.

This is why I was so quick to sign up for The Poetry Marathon. I have done NaNoWriMo before, and this seems much more accessible. I tend to overthink my decisions, but one day about a week ago, I read about the Marathon for the first time in my life. Less than ten minutes later, the decision was made and my application sent off. One of the easiest decisions of my life. I don’t know why it was, but it felt fabulous.

By rights, any sane person should seriously hesitate. It takes guts to sign up for this, folks. You have my respect. I wish every poet here a deeply satisfying, best-case startling effort!