So About This Whole NaNoWriMo Thing...

Okay, y'all, I actually decided to take the plunge and participate in NaNoWriMo this year. As much as I love writing blogs, writing a book has always been a dream of mine. In middle school, my friend, Sammi, and I came up with an idea for a book, and while that didn't pan out, the idea of writing a book stuck with me. I've started writing two books and a children's book series since then and haven't finished, but I have a good feeling about this one. I'm going into NaNoWriMo with a completely new idea, and I'm really loving the direction that it's going so far in the planning stages. So what is NaNoWriMo?
For those that don't know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place in November, and it's basically a way for aspiring novelists who have had an idea in the back of their minds for awhile but haven't had the time or motivation to actually take the plunge and write a book to join thousands of like-minded individuals in the same boat and take time to focus on writing and finishing your book (run-on sentence, much?). As a participant, your goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. If you do that, you become a winner, which is awesome. Everyone can win! And as great as it is to get to 50,000 words, the ultimate goal is to finish the first draft of a novel.  I've loved the idea behind NaNoWriMo ever since I first heard about it, but this is the first year that I'm diving in and really doing it. I've already connected with some writing buddies through the website and Twitter chats, and it's amazing what ideas you come up with through creative conversations and brainstorming with people you've never met before. I've loved connecting with aspiring novelists who have participated in NaNoWriMo before and even those who are first-timers like me. It's also great to get an outside perspective on something you've been working on. I've pretty much had tunnel vision with my novel for quite some time, and by talking out plots points with both writing buddies on NaNoWriMo and also Jon, I've been able to create something that I'm really excited to write about and that I think will end up becoming something awesome.

So what have I been doing to prepare for November? As I've said before, I've been connecting with people on the NaNoWriMo site. I have a few writing buddies, and I've also found a few fellow bloggers who are participating in NaNo as well. I've have also joined two Twitter chats and watched a webinar with NaNoWriMo's founder, Chris Baty. I've connected with fellow NaNo's in my area, Shreveport/Bossier. Hopefully I'll be able to attend the local launch party and bounce some ideas off of them. Because I love music so much, I've created a playlist for each of the key characters in my book, as well as a playlist for one of my main settings and one with some slow, mellow songs for writing. It's amazing how much these songs have impacted my characters, because they fit them perfectly.  I'm also a very visual person, so I created collages with pictures that represent my characters. Pictures include outfits that my character may wear, hairstyles, shoes, physical attributes (such as eye color, facial hair, etc.), and so much more. The combination of the music and these collages have really made my characters come to life.  Of course, I've also made outlines for my book and even had Jon read over them to see if they made sense and if the general flow of it all was okay. I've run my idea past a few people just to see if they think it's even interesting and if it's something that they would like to read. As you can probably tell, I'm getting really pumped about my book, and I can't wait to see what results come out of participating in NaNoWriMo. All that being said, my blog will probably be a lot less active in the month of November while I'm delving into this world of my own creation and hopefully coming out of it with something that I'm really proud of.

Have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo?