So Excited About NaNoWriMo!

Hello Fellow Writers!

Yesterday I actually got a lot done on my plotting for "Snowed in With a Millionaire". I would have kept going but we are renovating our bathroom and I had to go to Home Depot! So far it's looking like I will have more than the 40 pages of plot that I thought I would, because I have 26 pages so far and I am no where near my Happily Ever After. On the bright side, I'm feeling more like I will get this plot written in time to start writing the novel out for NaNoWriMo. I've wanted to do it before but the timing wasn't right. This year, I will be prepared so that at midnight on November 1st, 2009, I can start my journey of writing a whole first draft of a novel in one month. My husband is skeptical. I am really excited.

Here's what the NaNoWriMo website has to say:

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Yay! I hope you'll join me on this journey. I'll be blogging about it here as well. Today I am going to get some more plotting done. I'm writing such a meticulously detailed plot outline that it's almost like a first draft in the sense that I can spot plot holes and fix them before I start actually writing.
Wish me luck and good luck to you too!
Yours Truly,
Shoshanna Evers