Beach House in the Burbs

No, I didn't finish 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I got to 20,000 and realized a couple of things: 1. The book was going nowhere, at least nowhere I could figure. The GPS had completely quit after leading me down increasingly narrow roads with no view. 2. If I'm going to participate in the challenge again, and I might, I have to go in more prepared. I decided on a whim, on the last day to sign up, to participate this year, thinking maybe it would spur some sort of fantastical writing. But, alas, it didn't. I need to go in with more than a tiny spark of an idea that sounded great in my head at two o'clock in the morning, but somehow didn't translate to more than 20,000 words--and it required stops at numerous metaphorical gas stations to ask directions to get that far. Because I'd essentially abandoned the idea before Thanksgiving (I traveled with my laptop, just in case. Mostly it sat in my room calling my name occasionally but wit...

NaNoWriMo needs to be renamed. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and is going on now. But it needs to stand for National Novel Writing MORE, because if you miss a day or, heaven forbid, two, the number of words you have to write to catch up becomes exponentially MORE impossible with every passing minute. The goal is to have a 50,000-word novel written within the month of November, or 1,666 words each day. I did great for the first seven days. Then life got in the way. As of today, I am officially 6,666 words behind! When I wake up tomorrow I will be more than 8,000 words behind. And what am I doing--blogging. Because, frankly, it's a lot easier to complain about writing than it is to do it. Try it, you'll see. Feel free to complain in the comments. Reading your complaints will provide me another much-needed form of procrastination.

For those of you who don't know what that weird word in the title is, it's short for National Novel Writing Month. This is the 10th year that November has been NaNoWriMo . I first heard of it a couple of years ago, but never considered participating until this year. I found myself on Friday, October 31, the very last minute, registering without a thought in my head about what I'd write. Now, two days in, I've got 4,200 words. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. (For those of you who are as mathematically challenged as I am, that breaks down to 1,666 words or almost 7 pages each and every day of November.) Don't edit, don't think too hard, just get the words out. The editing, revising, polishing or even the tossing out can come later. You're supposed to start something new, not work on something that's already in progress. So, I've started a young adult mystery. I dreamed up--literally--the premise one night last week. We'll see if it ...