Another November, Another Adventure

November is approaching. I know, you're looking at the calendar and thinking it is still two months away.

It is exactly 52 days from today.

On November 1st, I embark on my fourth attempt to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days. It sounds difficult, but it really isn't, if you just let your brain go and let your muse take over. I wrote 95,000 words the first time I attempted this. I wrote 78,000 the second. Last year I wrote just over 80,000 words.

This year should be around 100,000 words.

What is this madness, you ask? It is National Novel Writing Month, or more commonly known as "Nano." Nano writers abandon their families, keep their coffeemakers running 24/7, and forget to eat, clean, sleep, or read email for thirty days. In that thirty days, a Nano Writer will bang out at least 50,000 useful words of prose, dialogue, scenes, and descriptions. Nano is a frenzy of creative output; the quality is not what matters here, but the quantity. Editing can be done later. The emphasis is on production...word counts. Every single word counts, even nonsense and curses and pages typed from your favorite novel.

What you end up with is your entire work on paper (or in the computer, as it were). It is a way to actually get those ideas out of your head and into a workable form that you can then use to actually publish. Some Nanoers have actually gone on to publish; I did.

I had considered whether or not I wanted to blog about my writing. I already maintain a nearly daily blog that surrounds my every day adventures as a mom, wife, geek, wedding minister, clown, and psychic. I could have just added blogging about my writing there. But I think this needs its own space, and therefore, Without A Net has been born.

Should you wonder what that means, it is the proposed title of my 2006 Nano. Fifty-two days and counting!