Next Up: NaNoWriMo

My Dear Reader,

Things are going to change a little bit in November, since it is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It's essentially a group of writers who get together online and motivate each other to do an amazing feat: write a 50,000 word novel in only thirty days. The idea behind it is that everybody has a novel inside of them, but some need a little bit of help to get it out of their brains and onto paper. I know that this is true by experience, since half of the time I tell people about my almost-done novel, I find that they have a novel that they want to write, too.

I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't think of themselves as writers. I wonder if these same people would feel more capable if they thought of it as storytelling. All you really have to do is tell a really, really long story. I think that the sweetest part of NaNoWriMo is that it doesn't matter if your story is awful; it's just about finishing. It's a race, and it's hard to get to the finish, but your only competition is yourself. And even if at the end you've written the worst novel in existence, you still get that sense of accomplishment. It's that special feeling you get when you are sitting quietly by yourself and think, "I'm a novelist."

I "won" NaNoWriMo last year, and I intend to do the same this year. I've got a mystery/thriller-ish novel lined up, with some characters that I've been working on for years. Here's a cover mock-up that I put up on my profile page, under the pseudonym of TheOtherOne:


The biggest change that I foresee in the next month is that I will be posting a count of how many words I've written so far. The next change is that I will post an excerpt of my novel every Friday, which means that yes, I will resume posting every Friday.*

I would really hope that you would take this challenge on with me, Gentle Reader. I'm always here if you need some encouragement. Just go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and sign up. I promise it will be worth it. Either way, you'll get to see where I am come November 30th.

Regards, best wishes, and 50,0o0 words,

-Cecily Jane

*And I've got a great story lined up for this Friday, by the way.