2 DAYS!!!

We've only TWO DAYS left until the beginning of National Novel Writing month and I have no idea what I'm writing. Now, some folks enjoy the feeling of writing by the seat of their pants. Sadly, I'm not one of them. I need a rough road map of where I want to go and key points I want to visit along the way. I haven't got that yet and it's starting to bug me a bit.

I like to use the month of November to push my boundaries. Test myself and see what I'm made of. My first year, it was simply to write 50,000 words of fiction that didn't completely stink. To take a plot idea and run with it. The next year I settled on a middle/young adult work that my kids could read. Two years ago it was erotica/romance. Just how far could I get myself to go with a sex scene? (And yes, I really did suprise myself with that one!) Last year I tried to tackle a sequel to the young adult story, but didn't get very far. Actually, few of us got very far that year. I'm not sure what happened to the others, but I know what happened in my case. Or at least I think I do. I hadn't finished editing the first book and it seemed silly to go on to the next. That and I got sick half-way through.

All of which brings us to this year. What the heck am I going to write? I thought I'd tackle a non-fiction mythology book. It's something I've been thinking about for a good while now. But then I got this sliver of an idea for a true vampire tale, which is something I've also been thinking would be fun to write. And by true vampire, I mean the revenant vampires of folklore. Something truly horrific as opposed to what Hollywood and lit. have been tossing our way. (THAT was my first novel.) However I didn't have much to go on, until last week that is. One the way back from taking a friend home from our meet n'greet, it started to plot itself in my head. Great, right? Except it stopped and I haven't had the chance to think more on it...So, WHAT am I going to begin writing in a few days? I still have no idea, but something tells me it'll be neither of the above, because that seems to be how it's going this year.

*sigh*

Catching Up

I really should have an exciting new post here...but I don't. National Novel Writing Month kicked off this past Tuesday and I'm woefully behind. Between getting ready for the kick-off (goodie bags!), getting ready for book fair, and covering for our school secretary, who was off with some health issues, all I did this past weekend was sleep. *grin* I did get the story started at our youth group's lock-in on Friday.

Tonight I'm heading in town to the Union Street Cafe for some serious working time. I think some of the other WriMos will be joining me there. Hopefully some serious words can be churned out and I can really get into the meat of the story, where the really fun stuff happens.

Oh, and I have a working title - Visions of Treasure Past. It's met with Drama Queen's approval, which is more than the other title's I've tossed out have done.

Okay, off to get some stuff done so I can get out of here!

2007 Chris Baty Interview

For those of you not in the know, Chris Baty is the insane founder of National Novel Writing Month. Today I stumbled across this interview from 2007 that rather puts the silliness of OLL during NaNoWriMo into some perspective. I can really appreciate the man's vision and intelligence even more now.

The interview was conducted by Therese Walsh, on of the writers at Writer Unboxed.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Now, go get your equivalent of a magical Viking helmet of writing and come join us in November for one heck of a monthful of writerly abandon!