NaNoWriMo2008 Winner!

I’m exhausted and it’s almost midnight, but I’m just going to post the winner goodies for writing 50,000 words. 

 

I can’t decide if I like the shiny gold trophy or the mighty Viking ship better.

So, that was challenge number one – 50,000. 

Challenge number two – get the story finished.  We just met my bad guy, so this could take me a while.  Especially since my productivity will likely slow down.

Early NaNoWriMo Update

So far, things are going very well.  It helps when you start off with more than two full days to write.  I have time to blog right now because the NaNoWriMo website is always slow in the first few days when everyone is excitedly updating their word counts or participating in the forums.  A few things I’ve learned so far this year . . .

1. I am a plotter and not a pantser.  I am going to try to spend more time throughout the year working on story plots and editing so that I might actually get some finished works I’m proud of.
2. Competition is good for me.  I’ve done a few sprint challenges so far already and am on the Vancouver vs... Toronto regional challenge as well.  Hopefully that’ll help give me more motivation to pump out more than average amounts of words.  (I also have a secret NaNoWriMo Nemesis that I used for competition last year too.)
3. Hmmm, I guess it’s only 2 things I’ve learned so far.  Maybe number 3 will come later on in the month.

Last Chance to Prepare

Tonight represents my last chance to prepare for NaNoWriMo.  I’ll have the house to myself for a few hours while my husband is at his study group.  I will also have a few hours tomorrow morning before I start work at 1:00pm.  It’s quite dubious that I’ll have the energy to do anything after working on Hallowe’en, but I might surprise myself.  Here are the things I still have to do before NaNo begins.  At this point, they are all bonus preparations.

1. Stock up on certain drug store supplies: mascara, cleaner, bus pass, bath lily.
2. Clean off my desk.  *sigh* I still have wedding memorabilia stacked on the top of my desk shelf.  My wedding was over 2 years ago.  And that’s just the top shelf!  Ideally, everything will find its proper home.  Cynically, most things will be dumped in a cardboard box and stuck in the closet.
3. Catch up on laundry.
4. Do a bit of world building and create a map.  Technically, I should be able to start my novel without doing this bit, and just work on it as I write.  But, it would be nice to have it done before hand.

NaNoWriMo

That stands for National Novel Writing Month. This was one of my 5 main goals for this year and it will probably be the last one that I complete since I never got around to booking a road test. (I know, you don't need to tell me that I should really do away with the 'N' status). NaNoWriMo takes place every November. Basically, if you sign up, you try to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Crazy, right!?! Well, I'm a little crazy anyway, so I thought I'd give it a whirl this year. I've got a story idea that I'm going to try to jump into and I'm all excited about meeting some of the other participants and being involved in it all. I was a bit disheartened that I didn't have a totem that so many others on the NaNoWriMo forums seemed to have, but then one found me - Oscar the Grouch, complete with a little sign that says 'scram' that's so perfect for when I need to be left alone to frantically try to find a lot of short descriptive words. (BTW, thanks again Kim!)

But, this also means that I will likely be posting even less than I currently am. I guess you could say that I'm on hiatus for at least a month. And, realistically, considering Christmas is just around the corner and I'm hosting dinner for about 20 people (maybe I'll need to reconsider which adverb I use to modify how 'crazy' I am) I'm not sure I'll be back until 2008. However, if you subscribe to my blog through feedburner, I am going to continue publishing my del.icio.us links whenever things strike my fancy. I may even sign in to facebook once in a while and update my status with my current word count or even some totally random dribble if my brain snaps under all the pressure.