NaNoWriMo

Anyone else planning to participate in National Novel Writing Month this November?

The first time I participated was in 2004, and I lost because I gave up on my novel (which was utter crap) about 26,000 words in.

Last year, I won. I approached it in a totally different way - I plotted the whole novel out in January. There are some good parts of my 2005 novel, and some not so good parts. For one thing, my main character turned out to not be my main character after I started writing a secondary character who became much more compelling. And the whole story changed while I was writing, from being a fluffy, chick lit sort of book about a woman who is marrying a (closeted, in denial) gay man, to being an exploration of why the gay man was in the closet and in denial and why he wanted to marry this particular woman. I really should pull it out and dust it off and so some editing, because there is some good stuff in there.

This year, I was starting to panic because here it is, October, and I had no plot. I had an idea of a main character, a conservative, traditional housewife, with 2 kids, whose life gets turned upside down when her husband leaves her.

But with all the scandals (read: crimes) from the party of criminals and pedophiliacs, I decided that her husband is going to be a prominent local politician who gets caught doing something bad (I haven't decided yet whether they will be entirely financial corruption or a combination of sexual/financial wrongdoing), and her whole life gets turned upside down.

Anyway, if you are going to participate, we can be NaNo buddies! I'm registered as "maurinsky" at the NaNoWriMo website (which you'll find under the "Here I Am Now, Entertain Me" header on the right). It will be fun, stressful fun, but fun, nonetheless; and just imagine your sense of accomplishment when you finish!