What Is NaNoWriMo?

From the official site: "National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." 

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I've known about NaNoWriMo for a couple of years, but this year is the first year I am going to compete. I've dreamed of being a writer since I was a young kid going to the library. A library card has always been a magical item to me.

 I don't just go into the library with a grocery list of books and never impulse shop. Nope. I do know which ones of my favorite authors have new books out and look for them. But after that, I wander the aisles and pick up books that catch my eye until my arms are full. It depends on my mood what I'm looking to pick up. Sometimes I go in certain sections if I've been cooking or looking to brush up on something for work. Or maybe I'm in a bestseller kinda mood and then sometimes just something light you would read while catching some sun. I'm always in the mood for suspense and especially one with a twist at the end. And my favorite part is it's all free! Well as long as I get the books back on time :-)

I am so grateful to all those authors for making my spare time so enjoyable. And also for allowing me to go to so many different places and meet so many different people. Making up great characters is what a great author does I believe. Those are the books I remember the most. If I believe in a character and care about what happens to him/her, it makes for a memorable book. Stephen King is a master of this. I like the way his mind works and the crazy things he comes up with to write about. I love Stephen King because when I read him, I feel like he is sitting in the room with me telling the story. His characters jump off the page and seem real. After reading one of his "chunkers" I feel like I have to pull myself out of that book and back into the real world. King has a lot of talent no matter what the critics say. He is and always will be my favorite author. Others include: Kellerman, Cornwell, Iles, Irving, Grisham, Patterson, Koontz.

So back to the "I've always wanted to be a writer" bit. I've never done anything about being a writer, especially the first thing: write. Well let me back up, I haven't wrote day in, day out. I haven't made a commitment to it. I did take a class to write children's books and didn't do too bad on the critiques from my teacher. I have blogged here and there. I journal here and there. I think about writing all the time........... Bet there are lots of you who do that too. Hence the idea that I should enter NaNoWriMo this year, maybe make writing a habit.

I started googling nanowrimo and also writing and found a lot of interesting sites. I want to be able to reference these and thought it would be a good idea to make up a blog to keep the information for myself and also to share with others. If you do find something here in this blog that helps you, great! Leave a comment or share sites, hints or tips that have helped you. (Thanks in advance) I hope doing NaNo this year will help me to see I can write everyday even after November ends. Also, it would be great to be able to put a 2009 NaNoWriMo winner's badge on here!