Yes, NaNoWriMo is set to begin at 12am tonight. Will I be waiting at my desk at 11:59:59pm, fingers prone over my keyboard to begin furiously typing at the stroke of midnight? Nope. I’ll likely be at a Halloween party.

However, I will be participating in a local kick-off/write-in session in MD (along with Jessie) on Sunday morning. This will be my first time going to a write-in or any other sort of event for NaNo, so I’m curious to see what it’s really about. I’m hoping to connect with a few other writers at least. And, of course, I have a first-day goal of 5,001 words set for myself (exactly 3x the daily word count minimum of 1,667).

Pre-NaNo Progress

My pre-NaNo writing was largely successful. I did not attain a total of 50,000 words, as initially planned. My word count sits happily at 41,000, including the prologue and the first five chapters of my story. I elected not to burn myself out before NaNo even starts, hence why I stopped at the end of chapter five. That’s basically the end of the first “section” of my story, the point after which the narrative and characters start moving more quickly. I still have a little voice in the back of my head telling me that most of this section is boring and doesn’t go anywhere, but I like what I have, and I don’t feel like changing it. Shut up, inner editor, you over-analyzing fiend!

Anyway, I’ve spent the last few days before November 1 outlining the next three to four chapters, or at least major events, for my story. Ironically, I hadn’t given much thought to where the story will go next, so my ideas are very raw. This is both freeing and invigorating, because I’ve spent much of the last year wallowing in restructures and rewrites. Now, I’m really beginning on a fresh page. I know the direction my story is going, but I don’t know the path it’s taking. I think this will really test my ingenuity and spontaneity in my narrative, and I’m looking forward to starting.

And that’s exactly the place I want to be On November 1.

Programming Alert!

In addition to providing weekly (or so) updates of my writing progress throughout NaNo. I will be writing haikus each week based on themes directly from my story. People, places, objects of mysterious origin, otherworldly beings; all is fair game! We have five Sundays in November, starting tomorrow. I haven’t yet decided on the topics for each week, but be on the lookout for five Haiku Sundays based on themes from my alternate universe.

Steve D