What time is it? It's NaNoWriMo Time!!

It’s that time of year again, folks—NaNoWriMo time.

November is the National Novel Writing Month. It’s where all writing hopefuls start on November 1st and write a 50,000 word novel by November 30th. Impossible, you say. But no, it’s very possible. I myself have participated twice, and twice I completed the goal.  Were the novels I wrote any good? Not so much, but I had fun writing them. Whether the novels are good or not, is besides the point anyway. That’s where December-October comes in (the revision months). You can’t revise if you don’t have anything written in the first place.

What do I win if I complete the goal of 50,000 words? The ultimate prize—a sense of self-satisfaction. There is no money to win, no tangible prizes to score. This is a contest between yourself and no one else.

So this year, which was different than last year, I actually have an idea of what it is I want to write about. I even have a little bit of a plot in mind—Young Adult, zombie-western-romance. Strange, you say. Yes. Yes it is. But I embrace it because it is going to be super fun. AND that is what writing a novel in a month should be about—fun. Last year, I had no ideas, no plots and yet I wrote “Out of My Head”. It still needs a lot of revision work, but I am proud of it none-the-less.  It was the first book in which I had written a beginning, a middle and an end. For a very long time, most of my books had beginnings and middles but no ends. So this was an accomplishment.

This year, I want to do the same thing. I want a completed novel by the end of November. I would like to push myself to write maybe 60,000 words instead of just 50,000. That would roughly be 2,500 words a day.

Now, I have a couple of things going for me this time around that I didn’t have last year: I have three writing buddies that are going to attempt this NaNoWriMo thing with me. That should give each of us motivation and inspiration to keep typing away. It’s gonna be fun to encourage each other along.

So if this sounds fun for you in anyway, or you have always dreamt of writing a novel, come join me. Let me know and I can help get you set up on the NaNoWriMo website.  Wouldn’t you like to say to your friends, “Hey, what did you do in November? Nothing. Ahh, that’s too bad. Me, well, I wrote a novel!” http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I will post my first chapter of this new novel on my “Writing Page Tab” above, once I have written it. So you can see how the beginning of this zombie-western-romance novel starts out. Be looking for that by the end of the week and be sure to let me know what you think of it.

So if my house is a mess, the laundry ain’t done, I look like I haven’t showered in days, it’s because I’m writing and writing a lot. Come December, I will be back to my normal chaotic self. I promise.

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