Anticipation

It's almost that time of year again.  The weather may be getting colder, wetter, and windier, but I'm warming up to start one of my biggest exercises of the year.

No, not Christmas shopping.  That doesn't start for another month at the earliest.

Not "No Shave November," although I've been known to participate in that, too.

What I'm excited about today is National Novel Writing Month, commonly known as NaNoWriMo.  Every year hundreds of thousands of people commit to writing a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.  Is it an impossible task?  By no means!  I have successfully written more than 50,000 words three separate years.

Amy's NaNoWriMo Timeline:  

2004 - Untitled Romance Novel:  I set this one in the town where I now live, although at the time I lived in Portland.  It's actually a satire of romance novels, and I like to think it's great comedy, but it probably sucked.  This one will never see the light of day.

2005-2008 (also known as "The Dark Years") - I didn't do NaNoWriMo, but I did raise two toddlers to school age while going back to school and becoming a CPA.

2009 - Ravenswood:  This paranormal young adult novel has been revised and critiqued to death.  Some of you have read it at one point or other.  It has been shopped about, but not lately because it has no ending thanks to my latest, unfinished revision.  I know how it'll end, but I have to actually write it.

2010 - I did start a novel this year, but not only did I have sinus surgery during the competition, but I also had a difficult plot idea involving Russian spies.  I know very little about Russians and even less about spies.  It's not the 1980s, anyway, so Russian spies don't sell.  Had I finished it, this novel also would not have seen the light of day.

2011 - Blue:  Despite having major surgery and being mostly unconscious for a week of NaNoWriMo, I fought through and succeeded!  This book remains completely unedited.  I haven't even read through it.  Isaac, on the other hand, has already read it twice, and he and Jacob maintain that it is my best book yet.  It starts as a dystopian novel (I've never claimed to be original), but then I send my characters off-planet and it gets a little Anne McCaffrey-esque.  Eventually I turn the main character into a superheroine because that's how you get to 50,000 words in just a few weeks.  Now that I think about it, I loved writing this one more than any other.  I really need to read through it and start the revisions.

But I can't start revisions now because it is almost time for 2012 NaNoWriMo, and this year is going to blow all prior years out of the water!

2012 - Untitled: This year's book is also going to be a young adult novel, this time set in an imaginary post-war society.  I could tell you lots more about it because I have characters and setting and even major plot points, but I'm not going to tell you.

Do you feel the excitement?  NaNoWriMo is loads of fun, and at the end, if all goes well, you have a book that you wrote.  That's pretty cool even if the book is lousy.

Who is with me this year?