My Crazy November

Ah, it's that time of year when we get to break out warm boots, sweaters and jeans, pumpkin anything and everything, watch as the leaves turn breathtaking colors, and celebrate the spooky awesomeness of Halloween (I especially can't wait for Halloween this year as I'm helping my 13-year-old throw her first big party this coming weekend).

But there's one event that's overshadowing my excitement for fall right now: NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who haven't heard of this, and are wondering what language that was, let me break it down for you. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's a nationwide event that was created to entice writer's to challenge themselves to write 50,000 in the month of November. There's no prize or reward, other than the satisfaction that you can pump that many words out in that short of a time period. The first time I participated in NaNoWriMo, I finished my first full-length novel in over a decade, and actually published it a few months later. It's a great way for writers to break past all their fears, and train themselves to write faithfully. Anyone can sign up on their website, and it's free.

Originally I wasn't going to take the challenge this year as my personal life has been pretty crazy with busy children and the craziest harvest season I've seen in 20 years, but I've been running across giant instances of writer's block, and decided this is probably what I need to break through them, and get back on track. My goal in NaNoWriMo will be to complete the new adult romance novel I started last week. Still, I think I'll be lucky if I can complete the targeted number of words.

To any of my fellow authors also taking the leap with me this month, best of luck to you, and let's connect (my username: "jnau"). For those of you who aren't, please excuse my spotty absences and neglected blog posts. Hopefully by December I'll still be sane enough for things to go back to "normal".