NaNoWriMo 2011 is Almost Here!

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMois short for National Novel Writing Month. It has been held every November since 1999 and hosted by the Office of Letters and Lights. The goal? Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time. It sounds a bit daunting, but doable. Last year, 30,000 of the 200,000 participants completed the task. This year, I plan to be one of them!

I have had several ideas for novels come and go, but one in particular has stuck with me. It's been tempting to simply write it as a short story, since that is what I am most comfortable with. However, I don't feel that I can do it justice as a short story, so here I am, ready to dive into NaNoWriMo to get this thing started! Now my thing is figuring out how to go about writing this. With short stories, I have a general idea in mind and write (and re-write) as I feel the need. It's really just a freestyle thing for me. I cannot do that with this novel. The problem is figuring out just how to plan for this. I don't want to go into this completely unprepared (after all, I want to use those 50,00 words!) so I'm looking into novel outlines and such. Writer's Digest had an article a few days ago about preparing for NaNoWriMo, in which they suggested asking yourself the following questions:

What’s going to happen in the story?
What does the character want?
What will the turning points be?

If you can nail these down, you will set yourself up in a much better position to write something meaningful and (potentially) publishable.

Sounds easy enough... But is it easier said than done? We will see in a few days!

NaNoWriMo starts November 1, so you still have 4 days to register if you want to step up to the challenge. And if you do, connect with me on Twitter! I want to start a list of NaNoWriMo writers so we can touch base, help each other out and keep one another focused and encouraged.