It’s that time of year again.  November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  All over the world, writers of all ages and genres participate in a mad dash to the finish line.  The objective?  Write 50,000 words, or more, on a novel draft.  It’s that simple.  It’s like a marathon, really.  After all, what’s a marathon but running a bloody long way without stopping?  Same idea.  (Same bloody, too.)

I write my NaNo words on my laptop or my AlphaSmart 2000.  I have two of the latter, having worn one out.  I prefer my first one, actually, since the space bar on my second one is a little jellied.  We’ll see if we can fix that.  I haven’t downloaded my words from Thursday and Friday yet, but I wrote a bunch yesterday so I counted that.  It’s funny, though, NaNo will only let you count the days you enter words, so my count looks like this:

That’s okay, though.  The point is to accumulate words, not please widgets.

We also have word wars.  I’m part of ChiWriMo, or the Chicagoland Region.  (Don’t bother looking on a map for the “Chicagoland,” it’s what locals call the metro area that includes the city of Chicago but also the collar communities.  Some include four counties, some seven.  We’re an inclusive people, we Chicagoans.)  Our official word war is with Glasgow, Scotland.  The Glaswegians think they’ll win this year, but I have my doubts.  ~throws down imaginary gauntlet in Scotland’s general direction, ignoring the fact that there’s about 1,500 miles of land and an ocean between us – writers are, as all readers know, imaginative beasts~

What do you have to lose?  Only your skepticism and blank paper.  Why not consider joining the fun?  Already part of the fun?  Tell me your username in the comments and we can link up as NaNo buddies and maybe even have a word war.

Write early, write often!