NaNoWriMo - Let's Gooooooo!

November 1 (tomorrow) begins National Novel Writing Month where fellow writers and aspiring novelists try to write a 50,000 word novel throughout the month of November. This can be achieved by writing ~1,700 words everyday.

NaNoWriMo logo from www.nanowrimo.org

And I'm announcing that I'm participating this year. *cracks knuckles* Okay,  technically I participated last year and the year before but I didn't last long. I'm really hoping that this time is different because I took the time to plan my story and leave some room for pantsing (coming up with something as I write; flying by the seat of my pants). I'm a plantser who leans more towards planning.

My story may not end up being 50,000 words but my goal is to contribute something to my story everyday.

I almost freaked out today when I was coming up with a synopsis to post to my profile page on the site. There was one story that I had been trying to work out for the past 3-4 years but it kept falling flat and I kept losing interest. Earlier this month, I had another idea for a story to do for fun. So for part of September and October, I planned out the first story while occasionally writing stuff for the second. When it came to writing the synopsis, I wasn't enthused for the first story and trying to explain the synopsis was difficult and felt dull.

Then an itty, bitty whisper of a thought popped into my head. 

"Why not combine them?"

Intriguing. Hmm... No, no, no, no, no. The other story is supposed to be fun and I don't want to ruin it! I can't do that!

"Why not?"

So I sat there with the cursor blinking, blinking, blinking, blinking; impatiently waiting for me to write something. 

But it may enhance it. 

Not wanting to didn't sound like a good excuse and I don't know if I'm going to truly ruin it. 

Why not use the story that's on your mind most often and doing NaNoWriMo won't seem like a chore.

I thought some more and looked over my notes and plans. The phone rang three times while I was trying to think and type. Annoying.

So I combined them. I have to admit that I'm excited and a bit nervous. Hopefully all of my notes and plans won't get completely done away with. But then again, if they do that's part of the writing process. Right? What's important is that I know what I want my story to be about. The details may will change. I may hate having to write and re-write things all over again. But it's not an adventure if there aren't any challenges. NaNoWriMo may end on November 30th but my story won't.

Side note: I may have to go to the store to get more coffee and apple cider tomorrow. Seriously.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net