Announcing NaNoWriMo 2008!

I have been so busy lately that I didn't even participate in the 2008 Muse Online Writers Conference. I am, however, planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. (I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2007 but never actually wrote anything; in 2006 I "won" by completing the 50,000 word challenge.)

If you don't already know, NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month" (though it's actually international now). It's essentially a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel just in the month of November. You can outline before November 1st, write character development pieces, etc., but you can't actually start on anything that would contribute to word count until the clock strikes 12 on Halloween night.

I'm thinking of attempting again to write the novel I planned to work on last year, but never got to. (I never wrote a single solitary word. A stunning failure to follow my equally stunning victory in 2006.) The outline is already written, so I just need to go back and review it, see if I want to make any changes, etc.

You will notice that in the sidebar I have a NaNoWriMo 2008 Participant badge, which links to the NaNoWriMo site. Below that is a calendar widget that will show you my overall word count, as well as how I am doing each day; if you click that it will take you to my NaNoWriMo profile. Supposedly, the calendar widget should show light green for days when I have met my minimum word count, dark green for truly spectacular days, light red for days when I didn't meet my minimum word count, and dark red for days that really sucked.

Let's hope red isn't the predominant color at the end of the month...