The badges are so pretty this year!
Well, it’s here! For writers and would-be writers everywhere, this is the day you’ve been waiting for. November 1st, the official start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Well do I remember the joys, the sorrows, the euphoria, the stress, the comraderie! of this month of exuberant, frantic writing. And although I’m not participating this year, I am hoping to do all I can to support those who are: I created a NaNoWriMo page for the girls at NewMoon.com (which will also be featuring writing tips on the homepage all month long), I’m using my adult power and influence to pressure teens at the library to participate, and I’m planning to spy on and harass my friends who are participating (0 words so far, for shame!! If you’re participating and would like me to harass you, leave a comment with your NaNo username below — mine is sedeara.)
I certainly won’t be slacking on my writing this November, though! Besides asking my friends and associates, “Are you writing? Are you writing? Are you writing?”, I’ll also be:
- Writing poetry every day for the PAD Chapbook Challenge. Poetry is not my strong suit due to the fact that I don’t read a lot of poetry, so I’ll be doing that this month, too. I intend to rely heavily on my Picto-Journal for inspiration (I’ll be adding some new pics to it tonight). I also plan to convert the daily “writers block” prompts over at LiveJournal as poetry prompts. And, I hope to bust out the guitar for the first time in 11 months and try to write a song for the first time in 4 (yikes!) years. And of course, I can’t forget magnetic poetry! I hope to share some of my efforts here.
- Finishing the third draft of ETD, which is, incidentally, my NaNoWriMo project from 2008 (written just as I was starting this blog).
- Attending the Call to Action national conference in Milwaukee. I write for CTA’s 20/30 (young adult) blog, with my most recent post being about the Biblical idea of “holding all things in common.” (Is it Communism? Socialism? Democracy?) I’m excited to hang out with the other bloggers in person again, to be traveling to the event with my best friend, and to hopefully be gaining some inspiration for upcoming blog posts.
- Fantasizing about what I would be writing if I WERE doing NaNoWriMo this year. Lately, I’ve become very preoccupied with an idea I have for retelling Rapunzel. Thus, I dressed as Rapunzel for Halloween and have been listening a lot to a Rapunzel concept album a friend made for me. How fitting that Disney’s Tangled (which I’ve been looking forward to for years) also comes out this month!
Rapunzel dreams of having a life outside the tower
Enjoy all the wonderful writing November has to offer! I know I will!
LL Word 
Is that a kitty-cat on the top of the bookshelf in the photo?
Oh, snap, you called me out with my zero words! I can explain. I had write a mid-term essay as well as my regular essay for World Lit. Over the two essays, I wrote over a thousand words. Not impressed? Yeah, me neither.
Nope, there’s not a kitty in the photo (unfortunately). It was taken at Jo & Jill’s place, and Jill is severely allergic. There’s a wooden loon, a plate, and a wooden gazelle or something up there. I’m not sure what the black thing next to the loon is, though.
Sadly, homework/paid work does have the habit of sucking our words right out of us, doesn’t it? I actually wrote an essay about that in college. And don’t worry — you weren’t my only friend with 0 words to her name. I still have faith in you!
My mind is definitely interpreting that black thing to be the shape of a kitty.
The NaNo site was glitching a lot yesterday (I hear – I haven’t been there in days. . .) so some people were bitching on Twitter that they couldn’t update their word counts before midnight.
I think I might write some words tonight! Words, I say!
You do that!
I believe the site glitching. I had trouble getting in to spy on my friends. And it seems a NaNo tradition to have the site crash when all the enthusiastic NaNo-ers flood it on the first day.
Yep, I’m at the beginning of my first NaNoWriMo! I started completely from scratch with absolutely no plot ideas, so I’m treating it as “improv” novel writing, just seeing where things will go. Just getting back into a writing schedule is a bit difficult, I think, so whether I manage to finish or not, this will be a good experience. I’m a bit behind already too, but I generally go into a more frantic mode once the deadline gets closer, I’m afraid. Anyway, I’m looking forward to see if I can improvise something that actually makes sense by the end. I’m using my “Spoonbridge” name for NaNoWriMo as well.
I found you and added you to my “writing buddies” list. Good luck, and have fun!