The 500!!! Like 300 but with more clothes and less death....

....well probably. On the off chance that by the end of the year I am both a nudist and a terrorist, I apologize in advance for misleading you.

Welcome to my first real blog! I do not count the livejournal that I created in High School because, let's face it, nothing anyone writes at the age of 16 on a social networking site is worth remembering. The reason for this blog's creation is not because I have anything interesting to say. Quite the opposite actually. Allow me to start out with this....

DISCLAIMER: you heard it here first, I am not doing this as an attempt to amuse or inform the masses or to keep an accurate accounting of my life's goings on. If you end up amused, informed, or enlightened.....well, that's pretty cool for you, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Mostly, after my virginal experience with NaNoWriMo (n00bs go here to find out more: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ) in November of 2009, the AMAZING municipal liaisons challenged the members of the Boise Novel Orchard (noobs, you know the drill: http://boisenovelorchard.org/ ) to an ongoing writing goal. That goal is to write 500 words a day, everyday for a year. 365 days of hardcore writing-ness. The literary gauntlet is thrown!

So, since I'm a masochist, I have accepted the challenge. But like any remotely sane person, I took a break from writing after NaNo. I work retail, there's no way in HELL that I was going to attempt starting this in December. I decided that starting on the first of January would make my starting day preeeeeeeeetty easy to remember and fulfill my inner need for procrastination. It also saves me from the arduous tradition of coming up with a New Year's Resolution of my own. This blog will document my efforts. Sometimes I will post what I write, sometimes I will just write about my writing experience. Who knows what I'll actually end up doing, but in theory, I will write 500 words and/or a blog post everyday for the next year.

I am attempting to do this during the same semester that I am returning to college. This is my first real full time semester since my (less than satisfying) initial collegiate experience. The Study of Architecture and I had to split up due to irreconcilable differences. The school got all the money in the divorce, but I kept the memory of St. Louis in the spring, so who's the sucker, huh?....actually, probably still me.

So anyway, we'll see how it goes. Please don't judge me if I fail.

Before I close my first entry, I suppose I should tell you, my dear interwebs, who I am and what my blog's name means. If I'm sending this blindly into the void, I suppose I should give the void a frame of reference.

My given name is Laura,* but my mother sometimes calls me Lolly or Lolly Baba or some derivative thereof. One day my dearest sister, Theresa, overheard my mother calling me. She mistakenly thought that my mom was calling me Wally**. Even after we corrected her, Theresa found that she liked calling me Wally or Wally B or Wallabe etc etc and the name stuck.

About a year and a half ago, I got a job working at my favorite local bookstore. Unfortunately for me, one of the bosses is also named Laura. So I had to pick a nickname to go by. The only other name I answer to is Wally. So I, in an utter lack of foresight, told them that I would be more than fine going by Wally. Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth trying to explain, but I've grown to really enjoy having a unique and gender-confused moniker. Most of the people I see and deal with on a regular basis know me as Wally and not as Laura.

So that's that, I may not be living the dream, but I'm living the nom de plume.

Happy New Year and good night!

Word Count Today: 730
Word Count Total: 730

*Laura: from the Greek meaning crown of laurel leaves which was the award given to ancient Olympians (ironic since I'm a fat girl with no fine motor skills or aim to speak of) and laudable poets (grossly optimistic, but heartening in its symbolism for a young poet like myself).

**Wally: diminutive of either Walter (German for powerful warrior) or Wallace (Scottish word for a Welshman), also a word for an idiot in colloquial English (UK)...so basically I'm an idiotic fighter from Whales. Awesome.