NaNoWriMo 2006....five days to go.

I spent my hour while SuperGirl was at dance class today at Starbucks, making notes. I think I'm going to try again. This will be my second attempt at National Novel Writing Month (see www.nanowrimo.org). It's an amazing idea: write a 50,000 word novel in a month, from November 1st-30th. People all over the US (maybe beyond) do this. Some do it year after year. The goal is to finish, not necessarily to write the next Great American Novel. It is assumed that the first draft will be a piece of *#@*, and much revision will be needed. I stumbled upon the idea last year about a week before the month began, and started out strong. I wrote about 6200 words, and then....we went to Disney World. It was hopeless after that. I just went back and reread what I wrote last year, and I actually like it, even though it is transparently autobiographical. Almost painfully so. Someday I'll pick that novel up again.

This year I have a new plot, new characters, and several pages of notes. I don't know if this will help me or not. Why am I doing this, when I have plenty of other things to do during November....like....ummmm.....work? Laundry? Legos? Barbie? Talk to Mr. Incredible? Blog? Maybe because I have a secret desire to be a successful novelist, and I guess actually writing a novel is the only way to get there. I'm not sure I would actually get started without the construct of NaNoWriMo. Like I've said before, I am, essentially, lazy. I think I read today that to reach 50,000 words, I will need to write about 1667 words per day. I guess I need to get caught up with the laundry before next week.....