NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. The concept is to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month. It doesn't matter how bad the story is, you just have to keep writing until you hit 50,000 words. Participants are judged solely on word count, and get recognized for meeting the goal. The purpose is to encourage writers to be creative and write freely, without worrying about the finer points. Just get the ideas on paper!

I am not participating, because one of the requirements is that it has to be a new project, not a revision or continuation of something you've already started. However, I really want to finish The Golden Gryphon by the end of the year, so I'm setting a goal for myself, like a mini-Nanowrimo. I need about 40,000 words, so if I can write 1,000 words a day (on average) for the next 40 days, I should be basically finished with my book. Of course, there will be a lot of editing and revising to do. I may end up writing significantly more than 80,000 words in the process, up to a third of which will likely be eliminated before the final draft. But the important thing is to keep going, and to pace myself. I tend to get frustrated if I can't devote as much time to writing as I would like, but if I give myself permission to do 1000 words a day, at least I know I can come back to it tomorrow for sure.

1000 words takes me about 2-3 hours. I expect many of those will be late at night and early in the morning. I haven't done anything today, so I better get cracking!

Have a great weekend, everyone. It's pouring rain here, and we have to go to a birthday party tonight. Yuck! At least there will be cake to reward us for venturing forth into the dark, wet, wildwoods of New Jersey.