Taking the plunge

For several years I have written on this blog and my creative writing blog that I'd like to join in with National Novel Writing Month. Every November writers around the world type their hearts out as they create a 50,000+ novel in a month. It's always sounded so intriguing to me, but I've always had more pressing things to accomplish (like cuddling orphans in Tanzania or teaching English in Korea). But this fall I haven't been doing too much of anything. Well, I've managed to keep myself busy, but let's just say I haven't been doing too much of anything truly important. I'm living in Maine, but not actually allowed to work in the U.S. yet. So I've done some work online for my dad's company, helped my mum out with some projects. But I'm not really what you'd call busy. So this year it is. I will take the plunge. I've calculated it out and to accomplish this goal I'd need to write an average of 1,666.66 words each day in November. That is totally doable and a much easier goal to accomplish than 50,000 words in 30 days. (One semester at Southern I was supposed to write a 1,000-word journal entry each week. I would inevitably leave it to the last minute and then rush into the library an hour before class and crank out 1,000-1,200 words before dashing off to class.) So with all this extra time I have lying around, all these days with no purpose and nothing much to complete except for busy work, I will write my first novel. It might not be very good (it might, in fact, be quite awful). It might actually turn into a short novel, and several short stories. But that's OK. Because I've committed myself to writing at least 50,000 fresh and new words starting on November 1*. Wish me luck because I'm sure I'm going to need it.

*I sure hope I can start on November 1. I'm leaving in about half an hour to drive down to Tennessee for Southern's alumni weekend where Jonathan, my sister Bryn, and I will be playing in the alumni orchestra concert on Saturday night. I'll be visiting with my parents, my sister, my brother and his family, and several members of Jonathan's extended family. Then my parents, Bryn, and I will be headed down to Florida to see my older sister and my good friend from Tanzania and her adorable baby boy. I won't get back to Maine to start writing in earnest until the afternoon of November 2. Here's to hoping I start writing something worthwhile starting November 1 or at least go crazy with writing a bunch of short stories that will equal 50,000 words.