NaNoWriMo 2010

The count-down is on! Less than a month until NaNoWriMO 2010! With the completion of the Twin Cities marathon fresh in my memory (and my legs), it's time to focus on the mental marathon of writing the next draft during November.

For those of you not aware of what I'm talking about, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It's a program that helps people focus their 'inner author' and channel their efforts by aspiring to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It's definitely a tough goal - I've started NaNo four times this past decade, and was only able to complete it twice (with one book to show for it). This year I'm going to start a fifth time, with a goal of 'winning' a third time, and ultimately getting a higher word count than my previous two completions.

Bring on the coffee!!!

To add to the excitementt, NaNo is partnering with 30 different cover designers this year, who will then randomly pick out works in progress and begin designing covers for the novels. This has left me to contemplate whether I should work on the draft for the second novel in the Enemy Calling series (which, to be fair, is already well in progress and defeats the purpose of NaNo), or start on one of the other ideas that have been floating around my head. I'm leaning towards the latter, but I've put so much work into the second EC book that I almost feel obligated to finish that up before focusing on anything else. Either way, there shouldn't be a shortage of material to work with!

And no writer's block (knocking on wood while I type this).

Anyone can sign up to do it. Just go to http://www.nanowrimo.org and set yourself up with a log-in ID. You can post your word count and excerpts every day (or however often you can), as well as peruse the efforts of other writers and see who is local to your area. There is also a program for children to get them into writing. I'm debating if my oldest is ready or not. She's already written one short story for me!

Good luck to all who sign up. Comment or post if you have any questions. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter as well...