Nanowrimo 2011

It's October 1st, 2011. Which means it's one month to the Annual November Madness that is known as (inter)National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. If you are one of my two faithful readers, you know that this will be my fifth attempt at NaNoWriMo, and, if all goes well, my fourth success.

If you're not one of my two regular readers, then you may not know what NaNoWriMo is, so here's an explanation:

National Novel Writing Month, which began in San Francisco with founder Chris Baty, involves large quantities of coffee, lack of sleep, tons of support from fellow NaNo'ers, and if the fates are friendly, a rough first draft of a novel.

Ok, let me try that again. You have 30 days, starting at 1 second after midnight on November 1st to 1 second to midnight on November 30th, to write at least 50,000 words - which is the generally accepted minimum length to be considered a novel. 50,000 words in 30 days? Sounds daunting, I know. But it isn't! That breaks down to 1667 words per day. Still sound daunting? Yes, a little, but if you just sit down and do it, it works.

Thousands of people around the word do this each year, and each year, many of them succeed. Not all, no, but a large number do. You can see the statistics on the website, linked above.

I'll try again this year - unprepared as always. My characters will pull themselves out of my brain and do what they want to do, with me nudging them gently in this direction or that, but mostly just letting them do their own thing. It's fun, it's frightening, it's exhilerating, it's exhausting, and it's absolutely and completely worth it!

Perhaps this year, you'll join us...