NaNoWriMo

Well, I have officially signed on to NaNoWriMo for another year.

Given that I'm starting a new job on November 7th, this will be an interesting challenge. But I figure if I work really hard from the 1st to the 7th, I will be able to get far enough ahead to be able to keep up the rest of the month.

For those of you who might not be familiar with NaNoWriMo, the idea is to write a novel in one month. In reality, they are looking for 50000 words which is more like a novella, but the idea is to get writers past the production hump that stymies most of them. During that month, you don't worry about editing. You just allow yourself to write. Most writers tend to perfect more than they write and they never complete their work. Last year, I was keeping up pretty well until my mother's death on the 14th. Obviously, I missed a few days of writing then and the whole thing kind of fizzled out as I had other things on my mind.

At the same time, the novel I was working on was heading in its own direction. Towards the one I'm working on now. But it wasn't working as it took that path. So I decided that this year I will let this novel out. I've been researching the topic, outlining and writing bios for my characters. I'm really glad I did. Now I have all this material to review and use whenever I'm stuck. I'll be posting my progress.

The plan--

Well it started with the research, the character bios, and the outline. I wrote a timeline too so that I can ensure that my pop-culture references fit properly.

To write 50000 words in November, I need to write 1667/day. I will double that the first week to get ahead. That allows me to have a bad day here or there. After the 7th, I will be writing at least that many words most days at work.

I've known few technical writers who could write for fun outside of the work-world. Something about the structure and the basic boring nature of what we are writing about makes it hard to be creative when you come home.

One of my biggest regrets about being a tech writer when I was working before was that I gave up my recreational reading. I read and write all day. Even recreational reading became work. I'm hoping that my 5 year hiatus has broken that cycle and I can write recreationally for a month.