NaNo Meanderings

I mentioned that I bought a raffle ticket in Skagway from a couple of firemen.  The drawing was Friday (Sept 21).  I haven’t received a phone call; guess that means I didn’t win anything.  Well, I donated to a good cause:  Alaska Firefighters. 

It’s officially Fall.  October is just around the corner.  That means it’s time to start thinking about National Novel Writing Month .  That’s what November is FOR, after all.  Right? 
(Edit:  the new icons have arrived!)

I don’t do much planning; I wing my NaNoNovels.  I do like to have an idea of the world I’ll be writing in, some characters fleshed out and an opening conflict.  An ending is nice, too.  I expect my characters to take over the story before I reach 10,000 words; they usually do.  I really need that this year.  My fiction mind is still on vacation after the big edit of Rising Tide. 

So far I have no ideas for a novel.  I’m considering doing 50K of short stories.  If all the stories are linked somehow - same characters, same location(s), or some other way - it would qualify.  I tried that in 2009.  It was ... interesting (in that sarcastic, not-really-sure-what-it-was sense).   I ended up with one partial short story, a bunch of scenes for the previous year’s novel that wasn’t finished (still isn’t), and a novella of a biography for a character that stepped in and took over.  Telepathy was a common thread in all three so it qualified under the NaNo rules. 

I’d really rather not repeat that. 

I have over a month to come up with something.  Maybe I'll hear back from my Beta Readers and, based on their input, do the next version of Rising Tide.  Maybe I'll use one line of song lyrics as the opening for each short story (an idea I'm toying with).  Maybe something totally unexpected will occur to me before October 31.

For sure I will do something.  If you enjoy writing, have considered writing a novel "some day," come try NaNoWriMo.  It's a great way to stretch your writer self and meet many nice folks doing the same.