Okay, happy dance finished, back to story... After discovering how not sweltering I was, I drove home with my window down just because I could do so without melting my face off. That's when I realized that it was below 100 degrees. And when it finally gets below 100 in Arizona, you know what that means? OCTOBER!!! (Let's all do another happy dance for one of the best months of the year.)
Bring on the Fall, baby! I love Fall. Especially since moving to Arizona. All the sudden the blistering-can't-leave-your-house-heat of August is gone and it becomes absolutely beautiful outside. The leaves start turning(not that there are many trees in the desert that do this), the Halloween decorations come out, you remember that you do in fact have neighbors because people can now come outside again... And finally, you begin preparing for the insanity that is NaNoWriMo.
That's right NaNoWriMo. Otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month.
Every year the month of November is dubbed National Novel Writing Month, and it is celebrated with a challenge. The challenge of writing an entire novel within the month of November. Well not entirely. The challenge consists of a 50,000 word goal, and 50k words is an extremely short novel. But as anyone who's ever participated in the challenge knows, 50k may be a short novel, but it's no laughing matter when given a 30 day deadline. Especially when Thanksgiving is crammed in those 30 days.
In order to "win" the challenge, you can't write a single word until November 1st and have to have reached 50,000 words by midnight December 1st. So why, then, do you begin preparing in October? Because most of us out there can't just sit down and pull a novel out of our butts with no prior thought. I've seen people do it, (not actually pull a novel out of their butt, but you know what I mean...) and my hat's off to those people. Personally though, I have to come up with a story and then outline it to death before I can begin writing. This takes me some time, and if I want to come even close to hitting that 50k goal, I have to be ready to set that pen on fire the moment it turns November.
So, this month, while still taking a little time to write every day on my current project, I will also be coming up with a brand new story outline for this years NaNo Novel. I'm really excited. I've got an idea that I'm stoked about and can't wait to start developing it. Not that there are a lot of details yet, but I will say this, I'm going to take a stab at my first paranormal/fantasy romance. (I'm all about Faeries at the moment.)
I'm determined to have this all planned out and ready to write by October 31st because I basically fail miserably at the NaNo challenge every year, and this time I'm determined to do it. Wish me luck! And if you're one to participate in the challenge feel free to chime in your thoughts as well! I shall leave you with two entertaining cartoons I found online that I feel pretty much sum me up.
This is me in October...
And once November hits I turn to this... 
If you want to learn more about NaNoWriMo or sign up to be a participant visit the website.
