Coming soon!

The one event I wait all year for is coming soon. The excitement is building. The participants are all abuzz with thoughts & possibilities. Preparations are beginning. Gatherings are being planned. What is this event? Is it the Superbowl, or perhaps Christmas? No...it's almost time for.... *gasp* NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. This event is organized and hosted by Chris Baty, author of the companion book, No Plot, No Problem. What is this event? Thousands of writers get together during the month of November, and try to write 50,000 words of an original book. This works out to about 1,667 a day. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality. This is not as crazy as it sounds. I've often heard the quote: "You can't revise a blank page." By giving yourself permission to write badly, just please, write...you turn off that internal editor that nags you to be perfect.

Each day of the event, you write your novel, and post your current total word count on the site, NaNoWriMo.org. When you get to 50,000 words, you submit your novel to have the word count verified. If you meet this goal, you win. The prize is simply the satisfaction of knowing you wrote an entire book in a month.

Last year I tried this, and only made it halfway there. However, as I'd never made it past Chapter One of a book, I counted this as great. Also, I finally found a local writers group, the Red Hot Writers. With the encouragement, and even nagging of this circle of friends, I know this year, I will be a winner!