plutherus

November is National Novel Writing Month.
I decided to jump in this year.
I went and signed up at nanowrimo.org and everything. Vowed 50,000 words in 30 days.

Which is, really, only about four pages a day. Difficult, but doable.

I work better with a deadline. So now I got one.

And, they give you these cool widgets you can put on your blog to let everyone know how you're doing:

The Rules:

1) It's okay to not know what you're doing. Really. You've read a lot of novels,
so you're completely up to the challenge of writing one. If you feel more
comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do so. But it's also fine to
just wing it. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if
you're not sure what that story might be right now.

2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as an
experiment in pure output. Even if it's hard at first, leave ugly prose and
poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor
will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who
foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you
write it slowly enough. It isn't. Every book you've ever loved started out as a
beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where
it takes you.

3) Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay
big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the
fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about
your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new
book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

3.5) There will be times you'll want to quit during November. This is okay.
Everyone who wins NaNoWriMo wanted to quit at some point in November. Stick it
out. See it through. Week Two can be hard. Week Three is much better. Week Four
will make you want to yodel.

And we're talking the good kind of yodeling here.