Countdown to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Over 100,000 people around the world commit to spend the month of November tied to their chair, fingers on their keyboard, snacks and drinks close by, to put out the incredible number of 50,000 words, that’s 1667 words per day. Why you may ask? Because it is there; not, that is just a clique, something we don’t want in our writings.

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1st. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.” This means no editing as you go along; just get the words on paper or computer, depending on your material of choice.

I had a desire to write and had written some stories but a whole novel was something different. Could I do it? Could my mind come up with a story idea that could last for 50,000 words? Would I dump everything in my brain and find I could only come up with 10,000 words? NaNoWriMo 2008 provided me with the perfect set up to find out if I could do it. I didn’t finish my novel, but I did crank out over 80,000 words in 30 days. Of course an awful lot of it is pure junk, but there is some treasure in there too. During those 30 days I was in a world of my creation. It was hard to come out of that world to do laundry, cleaning, preparing meals, errands, etc, so it did not get done as frequently as usual.

The main reason I was able to stick with it and produce was because of the support that NaNoWriMo provides for those who sign up. They have a web page with constant updates, emails of encouragement from authors are sent on a regular basis, you have your own page for your personal data and a wonderful graph that shows your word count, which you enter daily. Most cities have support groups headed by Municipal Liaisons. These wonderful people set up “write-in” meetings. Imagine a room full of people and all you hear is a soft click, click all over the room, this is what a write in sounds like.

It’s 2009 and I am going back to my cave. So my friends, if you don’t see much of me or hear from me, know that I am in my room, locked away from civilization to create. If you want to know if there is anything you can do to help I have a couple of suggestions: come over and clean my house (but please do not disturb me), bring over meals for Bob and me, bring me candy (sugar free hard candies and chocolate).

I will try to post updates of my progress on my blog, so check back once November 1 arrives.