Just a little over 12 hours to go til NaNo 2009 gets underway. I already have the first sentence ironed out in my mind -- now, only 49,987 words left to conjure up from the creative depths of my brain.

Off in search of fingerless gloves and my noveling hat (and maybe even some leggings...)

So, two updates in three days...I may be up to writing a novel after all.

First of all, I'm kind of annoyed at the lack of widgets going on in our side panel. NaNo always provides nifty little calendars and word counters to track the progress of its participants, and they've done so again, but this time they just aren't working. I've uploaded them several times but to no avail. I suppose I'll have to wait until November begins to see if I can add them in. For now, Jackie and I will just have to update you ourselves. (Or you can check out "Read Up" where it links to our NaNo profiles for that information - and more!) 

Secondly, I really want to thank Jackie for the adorable NaNo badges she sent me in the mail recently. They are 10, with one each for NaNo Socializing, Word-Count Padding, Procrastination, Caffeine Abuse, Secret Noveling, Creative Nonfiction, Rally Day, the Eureka Moment, Random Ending, and 50,000-Word Victory (see below). 

 

Let me share a little bit about what the Office of Letters and Light has to say about these guys:

1. NaNo Socializing - Earned for dragging a family member or friend into NaNo (None of my friends seem into it, but my mom is considering joining me this month) OR taking part in a word war with an online buddy (I'm counting Jackie as an online buddy since technically we won't be seeing each other in person this upcoming month) OR attending NaNo events (I'll be honest, probably not happening)

2. Caffeine Abuse - Pretty self-explanatory and I'm confident I can earn this one too...I just found a shop that will has a cocoa/cappuccino shop just like BJs at good old IC and am a little more than excited about it

3. Procrastination - Earned for skipping writing for more than 3 days in a row (let's not shoot for that one!) OR spending over 30 cumulative hours on the NaNo forums (hasn't happened yet) OR cleaning your home instead of working on your novel (I'd like to say it won't happen, but sometimes cleaning helps me think)

4. Word-count Padding - Earned by quoting song lyrics/other books in your novel OR having a stuttering or triple-named character OR writing out contractions OR introducing unneeded dream sequences or hallucinations (DEFINITELY guilty)

5. The Rally - Earned by having a 5000 word day (here's hoping!!) OR overcoming a 10000 word deficits (let's hope it's not necessary, but IF it is, this would be an AWESOME accomplishment)

6. Secret Noveling - I think it's safe to say noveling while I'm supposed to be doing something else is something that won't be hard to do

7. Creative Nonfiction - Earned by plundering overheard dialogue and real-life events for novel material (mm hmm) OR placing barely disguised friends and family members into your novel as characters (no comment)

8. Eureka Moment - Earned by those lucky ones that experience that "aha!" moment when a major plot point is resolved or your novel starts coming together (I can only hope)

9. Random Ending - Writing a gleefully left-field or completely nonsensical ending

10. NaNoWriMo Victory - Writing 50,000 words in 30 days (GOAL!)

So, I think based on an early assessment, I can easily earn 9 of these badges...I'm not one for nonsensical endings, but I have had some nonsensical chapters in the past, perhaps that's enough? Anyways, I'm excited to start earning something for all of my hard work. These badges are certainly a fun way to mark the milestones.

Wow, less than a week now.

November 1 is looming. It's getting closer and closer and even though I spent much of the past 12 months willing November to hurry up, now that it's on the horizon I wish it wasn't so soon. Half the time I'm falling asleep on the couch at 8pm -- I don't know how (if?) I'll be able to make it through the month without a near-frightening amount of caffeinated beverages.

I'm in the process of "outlining" my story. I've been preparing by making notes on flashcards. They're people, places, events, and overall feelings that have characterized the past 3 years. Part of the reason I'm doing this is so that I can kind of form a rough, chronological list of events -- a way of organizing the chaos -- but also so that I can remember as much as possible. This way, if an idea pops into my head randomly, all I have to do is jot it down on a card and later I can rearrange the pieces to add it into the body of my story.

This will definitely be a journey.

It's getting to the point where I'm almost nervous. I should probably stop thinking of it as the novel I eventually want to get published and just think of it as NaNo so I take away the pressure. NaNo = no pressure. I'm sort of ruining that with my big ambitions. So, from now on, it's just another crappy novel I'm writing in 30 days. Nothing to get worked up about.

Also, 8 days to go.

Less than 3 weeks to go. I've been excited for November for a long time, and while I'm glad it's really really close now, I'm also fairly nervous. I haven't done NaNo since 2006, so I think it will probably take a while to get back into the swing of things. Plus, I haven't written seriously in a long time. I'm already predicting that this year may be somewhat of a challenge. Between working 40 hours a week and being a full-time single mom, I barely have time to shower, let alone five minutes of free time. So I'm having a hard time picturing how 50,000 words will be created in the midst of my hectic life. But I think I work best under pressure, when all of life's responsibilities are crammed into a small, time-crunched space, so I'm hoping that with a little less sleep (the precious few hours I steal each night), a lot more coffee (and lattes and espresso and caffeine IVs if need be), and just a bit of creative multi-tasking (i.e. hiding my novel behind Meditech at work all day and taking extra long lunches)... and I think it can get done.

Speaking of the soon-to-be-born novel, I'm actually going the non-fiction route again. When I did NaNo three years ago, I wrote a condensed memoir of my naive 20 years of life. I wrote it mainly because I had to write my autobiography for class, so this gave me an easy way to reach te 50-page minimum for the assignment. But I also wrote it because it was, in a sense, therapeutic. At the time I was about to leave the life I had known (Ithaca) and reimmerse myself in the only home I had ever known (Reading, MA). I was scared and unprepared and needed a way to work out my emotions by creating something familiar and safe. So, my abridged memoir, "20 Good Years" was born.

Fast forward 3 years. The 20 good years I had lived morphed into an indistinguishable, at times dark, and foreign existence that changed everything I knew and everything I will become. I'm sorry if that sounds a little dramatic, but it's a fair characterization of the past few years. Things are finally falling into place, after much turmoil, and I really would like to revisit my life post-Ithaca to now for the same therapeutic reason as before. Writing is how I make sense of the world. It's how I process my emotions and figure out what everything means.

So I'm looking forward to this November. I can't promise there will be all-night write-a-thons filled with Taco Bell runs, skirts and leggings, and delirious 5am artwork (man, that night was fun), but there will nevertheless be a 50,0o0 memoir at the end of the month. And that's a promise.

So...I'm back. After a successful year one (2006) and an unsuccessful year two (2007), I took a year off. The being unsuccessful, I'll admit, had a little to do with my lack of enthusiasm in 2008, but at that point, I'd "grown up" and graduated and become a big girl with a real job. And, frankly, if I couldn't finish a novel that I loved when I had endless freetime (thank you, college) and a real-life support system, I didn't think I could handle it with a 40-hour a week commitment already in place - at a job I started 2 weeks earlier, no less - and all of my support systems far far away.

But I'm ready to give it the old college try again. I've been excited about NaNo ever since the beginning of the year, when I'd realized what I'd missed out on the November before and I'd re-read my novel and decided I loved it and it wasn't as bad as I had thought. It actually had potential - what luck!

In exactly 3 weeks from now, at midnight, I will begin my third attempt at novel-writing mania. I'm semi-cheating because I'm continuing my novel from 2007; NaNo says no pre-existing stories are allowed. But, let's be honest, without NaNo I can't write because I suffer from a severe lack of motivation and an overdose of self-editing. And I love love love this novel (and NaNo-ing). I want it to work and actually become a finished product. Who wants their main character stuck at 22 in what is supposed to be a lifelong story? Not me.

Anyways, I just wanted to share in my excitement and begin the countdown.
21 Days to go.