NaNoWriMo

All my life I’ve dreamed of writing a novel. Not because I have this burning story that just begs to be told. I don’t. But mainly because I have read so many mediocre novels that someone somewhere thought worthy of publishing, and I think, “I could write a better story than that.”

That, plus my mother fully believes that someday I will write a book.

So last year, when a friend of mine introduced me to NaNoWriMo, I decided to participate. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It is not expected that you will publish the novel. In fact, the whole idea seems to be quantity of words, not quality. It is basically for the exercise of writing.

And so, fudging on the guidelines just a bit, last year I wrote a 35,000 word memoir. November was over before I got to 50,000, but I was satisfied with my project.

Tonight was the kick-off party for NaNoWriMo 2008 in my area, and since Lyle is out-of-town, the girls and I decided to go. It was at a local pizza place, and we knew absolutely no one. There were 12 or 15 people there. The cool thing is that the first person who introduced herself was another homeschool mom, there with her daughter! We shared a table and had an enjoyable visit.

Our “municipal liaison” had wonderful little goody bags and workbooks for us. I think of it as a “novel kit”… just add words! There is a cute little pom-pom plot bunny, a writer’s block rock (with an instructions card), a tiny vial of glittery “Emergency Plot Hole Filler”, and an official NaNoWriMo badge sticker… oh, yeah, and chocolate!
So now the question remains, what am I going to write about?

Here’s what I have so far:

• The protagonist (that’s the main character) shall be female.
• The protagonist shall be a dynamic character. (That means she shall learn something or change some way over the course of the story.)

And that’s all I got!

Guess I better start filling in some of the blanks in that handy-dandy notebook and see where it takes me!

I expect I’m really just crazy to even think about doing this. I don’t have time to write a novel!