NaNoWriMo 2011; My nemesis

After neglecting to participate in NaNoWriMo last year, and against most of my sounder judgement given how busy I've been lately, I'm decided this is the year I do it. For real. No excuses. I don't care how terrible the final product is, I simply want to finish.

What is NaNoWriMo?

For the unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo is the clunky acronym for National Novel Writing Month. Every November participants attempt to finish a 50,000 word novel in one month. It's trickier than it sounds. Or maybe exactly as tricky as it sounds, if you're like me.

I logged in for the first time since 2009. According to the little tagline beneath my username, I created my this profile "nearly 5 years ago", though I'm fairly certain this will only be my third attempt. To inspire myself, I've update my author profile with the most author-y looking photo I could conjure: a black-and-white, overly-contrast-adjusted image of me when I grew out my epic summer beard this past summer. Yup, that should do it. Look at the face. That glorious, bearded face. That simply oozes accomplishment and lexical prowess. No doubt in my mind.

Should I enter this year's?

You should! Even in defeat, I found the experience rewarding and fun. You should also ponder giving them money. This year (Or maybe it was there last year too - I don't know) they have a nifty fundraising mechanism in-place that lets you "sponsor" a particular author, with the funds going towards the NaNoWriMo program. Check out my sponsor page. It's a nice way to raise money and give participants and extra bit of incentive. The default goal was $250, but I set it down to something much more modest.

What are YOU writing about, George?

My story may contain any, all or none of the following:

• A boy.
• A girl.
• Maybe second boy. Or a second girl. Or maybe a cactus.
• Descriptions of places I've never actually been to.
• Awkward interactions, confusing emotions and the neither happy nor unhappy endings life hands us everyday.
• A stretch of improbable occurrences that lead up to... nothing.
• Bathos.
• A chapter about the worst person in the world complete with terrible, filthy language.
• A car chase! Explosions! Shape-shifting robots!
• Probably not explosions.
• Embellishments, omissions and artistically rearranged truths, half-truths and bald-faced lies.

If you'd like to sponsor my writing and support the program, I would most certainly sponsor you in return, so get in touch.