What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

18 October 2010

NaNoWriMo

I'm pretty sure that stands for "National Novel-Writing Month." And I, in a moment of madness, signed up. The crazy starts November 1st.

Because, between uni, blogging, and volunteer work, I didn't have enough ways to fill my time. Clearly, I needed to add something else to the stack. So, why not this, that I've always wanted to do anyway, right?

Yes, I know I'm off my rocker. So, here's the challenge: Write a 50,000 word novel in November, which works out to 1667ish words per day. Those who make it to 50,000 words, win, and get the "Winner" badge to display on their website (and apparently some other stuff, too). Those who don't make it don't get the badge, but are probably still winners in a more hey-look-what-you-did-accomplish sense, unless they didn't make it just because they didn't bother trying.

The rules: I can't bring in anything I've already started (which would defeat the purpose of the exercise, anyway). I can make an outline ahead of time. I should bang something out and have fun in the process. It will be exciting. I've never really outlined anything that I've written, although now that I've seen this post from Unclutterer.com, I may adopt J.K. Rowling's outlining technique and see if it works for me.

And last year, my friend the Princess of Unicorns managed to win. It helps a lot knowing that someone I know has been there and done that. Plus, she and I are now WriMo buddies, and if there's one thing I don't want, it's a Unicorn Princess sending me nasty, sparkly PMs about why on earth I haven't updated my word count in a week. And she would, too, and would probably add some pink to the sparkle just to be sure I was paying attention. Eeek.

More news on NaNoWriMo to come. In the meantime, if you are interested in trying it yourself, click here. And friend me: I'm cheekysu (of course!).

Wanna win the first-ever giveaway on Cheekyness? That's right, to celebrate my upcoming 700th post, I'm having a giveaway! Comment, follow or link to my blog to enter the drawing. Contest ends at 9 PM (CDT) October 23rd!

6 comments:

Aaron said...

No thanks. It did appeal to me, but I'm pretty sure I would fail within the second day. I have a hard enough time finding the time to write the articles on my blog. And then I have a hard time getting away to read stuff on my own. My wife already complains I don't spend enough time with her! :\

Kate said...

HAHA, I'm still thinking about signing up for it!!! I think it might be fun to try!!

Su said...

@sparquay: Yeah, there may be some complaints from my husband. I think if nothing else, my slacker ways may be reformed after this. In a very cool twist, I came up with about three different plot ideas today-- one is for NaNoWriMo, another is going to be a background WIP that I probably won't bother with during November, and the third... well, I think I'll write down my ideas & come back to it later.

@Kate: Do it! Do it! Do it!

Grandpa said...

Hi Su, am here to wish you all the best!

I will not of course join - in case one of my goats decide to get sick before I even get to a hundred word...

Faith said...

Whoo-hoo!!! Another NaNo convert! You can do it, really... this will be my 4th year and hopefully my 4th win. It just takes setting aside an hour or so each day to bang those words out, and you'll be done in no time!

Do your best to get out to a regional meeting, too... it's super fun to meet other writers that are also doing something crazy. The support environment is fantastic.

Su said...

@Grandpa: Thanks very much! I hope you don't get any sick goats, regardless.

@Faith: Cool. This is really going to cut into my goofing-off time, more than anything else. And writing is more fun than goofing off, anyway.

I have all of our regional meetings on my calendar already! I may not get to all of them, but I'll do my best to get to some.