So NaNoWriMo starts this week!

What’s that?

It’s National Novel Writing Month — “30 days and nights of  literary abandon”! Prospective novelists are given the challenge to write a 50,000-word book from November 1-30, and they can all find support in one another to do so.

I watched it last year on the blogs — finding it particularly intriguing when the deadline was looming and authors were starting to pull all-nighters — but this year should be especially fun with Twitter involved! I’m sure we’ll be getting much more constant updates about who’s keeping up, who’s falling hopelessly behind, and whose characters are speaking to them in the middle of the night! It’s great fun, and writers look forward to it every year.

I thought about doing it this year. I love the idea of writing a “fast first draft” — I’ve tried it twice and it works great for me — but I decided against it for two reasons: Continue reading →