Ready, Set....

Well, here we are, NaNoWriMo Eve! The night that means trick or treating, ghosts and goblins, pizza and candy to most is actually the remaining few hours until the very first word that launches the novel writing frenzy. There are several Wrimos (nickname for those who participate in the madness) that lay down their very first word at 12:01 am on November 1st. I, however, will not be one of those people.

I've long since lost the ability to be cognoscente at the wee small hours of the morning. I may be awake, staring at the insides of my eyelids and trying to will my mind to quiet long enough to fall asleep, but doing anything that requires actual thinking is not my forte. No, I'll be patiently waiting until after work, well after dinner for that matter, to begin the process. Likewise, my word count on day one is very likely not to reach the daily average of 1,666 words.

I'm honestly not as prepared as I think I should be, but I have enough to know where it is I want to go and who's going to take me there. I have the bones of an outline, with about 12 or so steps through the plot line. I've found about 9 or so of my characters, they've introduced themselves and let me in on a couple sub-plot lines that could be intriguing. What's really kind of cool is that in the program I'm using, Scrivender, you can add photographs to the research area. So, I Google Image searched for pictures of what I had in mind, and low and behold, there were my characters, just waiting for me. I don't want to post them here because they are somebody's niece or dad, but honestly? It's really cool to see all of the people that I imagined, to find their photos among regular folks, all lined up like they were a cast in a movie. I'm not gonna lie, I liked it!

So, while I could be working some more on plot elements or fleshing out my biggest bad guy, I'm actually really tired and feeling like it's probably a better idea to rest tonight. Instead, I'd like to say good night to October with some thoughts from another author. Here's to the journey!


"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do that by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

-Mark Twain