National Novel Writing Month

Back in 2004, Chris Baty released a book called No Plot, No Problem, the premise of which was that you could write a novel in 30 days just by sitting down and doing it. He even proposed that all of us with the burning desire to write the next Great [insert country here] Novel should do it together, in November. And thus, the National Novel Writing Month was born.

This year, I am going to try my hand at NaNoWriMo as it is called. The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, or about 1600 words a day. The just bang it out school of novel writing. And I am pretty much going to do that. As of right now, I have not solid plot points, no real characters and no clue of what I am going to write about. But come Sunday, November 1, 2009, I am going to sit down and write. This is not to say I have not been preparing. I have watched a number of different TV shows, reviewed some of my favorite movies and reading up on plot points and story lines, but beyond that I am not going into this one with a lot of preconceived ideas. I am going to let it happen and see where it takes me. The great thing about this experiment is that I just have to finish. It does not have to be unified, relevant or organized (as an old English teacher used to grade). In fact, it never even has to see the light of day (other than for the obligatory word count).

So here we go! I have officially registered myself and if you want to follow along with my progress, you can. Send me encouragement, jibs and coffee and I will check back in December and let you know what fell out.