NaNoWriMo Is Here!

As with most years, I spend the run-up to November 1st trying to come up with something to do for the celebration, but usually take a pass. It's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to laymen like us. You've already missed your first eleven hours: starting at 12:01am today, you start writing about 1,700 words a day, until you've got a manuscript. No, it's not a finished book, and nobody's paying you for it, but it's the most important step in getting to a finished book or being published. Everyone talks about the story they've got knocking around in their head, and how someday, someway, it's going to be published and it'll be a big seller. Problem is, your list looks like something out of South Park:

1. Desire to write novel
   
2. (to be figured out later)
   
3. Profit!

Fortunately for procrastinators like you, NaNoWriMo forces Step 2 to be started: actually writing the damn thing. You're not going to have a publisher-ready manuscript when you're done, but it will be something you can work with. At that point, if you're just so happy to be done that you want to show it off, upload it to LuLu, mail it in to the Blooker, serialize it online, get it out there. Or, maybe it'll spur you into motion and you'll discover, hey, this really is a book, and you'll find yourself a trustworthy editor who'll hone the edges and make it ready to go to an agent or publisher. You can't get that far unless you start Step 2. If there were ever a day to do it, today is that day. Don't be like me: open Wordpad, get yourself started, and make this 10th NaNoWriMo the one that gets you moving!