National Novel Writing Month

I am gearing up for November 1st - the first day of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNo for short). The whole premise is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Actually, it’s fairly easy to do since we are not creating polished works here. The idea is to sit your derriere in a chair everyday and write, write, write. Ignore your inner editor and write whatever spills forth. I’ve found that I can type about 1700 words in an hour and a half, which is the minumum daily word count one needs to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Now, as long as a story is cruising along on autopilot those daily word counts are a breeze. It’s once I run into a problem that I slow down. But, in NaNo, you can overcome those writer’s blocks by any means necessary, even it if means your heroine all of a sudden has to fight off monsters suffering through menopause with teenage monsterlets nagging them. You can always go back December 1st and get rid of anything that doesn’t belong and keep the stuff that has promise.

So, if my blog becomes even less active during November, don’t worry, I will return in December. I had originally planned to post a blog twice a week, but it seems I’m lucky if I am posting on a weekly basis now. I’m not likely to solve that in November, but come December, I will be so overjoyed at having successfully completed NaNo for the third year in a row that I will want to tell you all about it.

And please check out my spot on NaNo’s site by clicking on the 2006 NaNo icon on the side bar. And if anyone wants to try her or his hand at writing a novel in 30 days, just sign up. There are tons of forums and it’s a lot of fun!