NaNoWriMo

It's National Novel Writing Month!


I remember when I first learned of this November phenomenon.  I was in tech school in Monterey, CA, and I signed up on the website.  I don't think it was November at the time - I just wanted to be part of the community.

Unfortunately, the whole time I was in the Air Force, I never actually participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  Not once.  Now, however, I am!

It's the perfect time for it, of course.  I'm between work and school, so I have more than enough time to do it; I've had a children's book plotted out for ages, so I had an idea to jump off from; I live in Portland now, where it's rainy and/or overcast most days starting sometime in mid-October, so it's not like I'm going on hiking trips every day.  So this year, I'm all in.

For those of you unfamiliar with NaNo, the goal is to write a complete, 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November.  That's an average of 1,666 words per day.  If you get on the actual website and create an account (it's free), you can submit your word count as you go (or all at the end, but it's nice to see the bar graph they make for your daily entries) and get the finished book 'validated' by their word counter so that you can officially 'win' NaNoWriMo.

There's a lot more to the website, and there's community stuff in person, too!  Each area (mine is Portland) had leaders who organize so-called 'write-ins': they reserve space at a coffee shop, or bookstore, or library, for a certain number of hours on certain days, and anyone who's participating in NaNo is welcome to stop by and work on their novel while enjoying some company.

Anyway, it's a cool program, really.  It's international, although it started here in the States, and they do a lot as an organization to contribute to writing programs in schools and such.


So what am I writing?

Well, like I said, i's a children's book.  It's called The Red Door and it's sort of fantasy genre.  Given that I'm writing it for NaNo, it's currently a little bit all over the place with regards to plot, but that's ok - it's only a rushed first draft, after all.  There are also more characters than I originally intended, and I'm starting to think this book may end up having a sequel.  Not sure how I feel about that.

At any rate!  As of now, I'm only a little bit behind in my word count,* and catching up.

This is fun!


*Not totally my fault - the movers did come and unload all my stuff just a few days in.