NaNoWriMo 2010 Sighted on the Horizon!

Yes, it's the big one.  The main event, the one that started it all.  The writing challenge to which all other writing challenges are compared, it's time for...

National Novel Writing Month

As this event is open to writers from all over the world, who pledge to write 50,000 words of original prose during November, both "National" and "Novel" are slightly misleading.  However, I suppose "International-Fifty-Thousand Word-Writing-Month" doesn't trip nearly so neatly off the tongue.  Or condense to such a cool name (IntFiThouWoWriMo?  Nah, I didn't think so.)

But NaNoWriMo is a November event, surely?  Why am I getting all excited about it in October?  Is my calendar running fast, or am I merely wishing my life away?  There are full four weeks to go before the novelling officially begins, aren't there?  Yes, there are, you are quite write, er, right.  But October isn't just "recovering from 50/90 month", it is also "NaNo Prep month".  The forums are getting busy over at the official NaNo site, and a bunch of us over at WDC are clubbing together to get our plots and characters knocked into shape before the 1st.  See our task list here: NaNo Prep Calendar.

This year I have learned that story ideas are like cats, in that they don't come when you want them and then turn up demanding attention just when you've settled down to do something else.  I had an idea brewing away quietly in the back of my mind, but not really coming together.  It had been there for several months and I decided it would make a good NaNo project.  Then, out of the blue, I get an idea for something completely different.  This story flows without too much prompting, and so I think I will shelve the original idea and work on this new one.  The old idea had been growing so slowly that I'd almost given up on it anyway.  Lo and behold, no sooner have I consigned the old idea to a back burner than it begins to sprout into a fully-fledged plot, with sub-plots and character depth and everything.  So now I'm looking at working on two novels this November, rather than just one.  And trying to get them both to the "first draft completed" stage by the end of the year.  This is because I have set January and February aside for editing last year's NaNovel.  Yes, the one that I've only just finished.  Because it took me ten months to write that first draft, so of course I'll be able to finish two more manuscripts in the next ten weeks, right?

Excuse me, I need to have a quiet talk with my optimism.   *THWACK!*  *OW!*

*Eh-hem*.  After mature discussion we have decided that October will be spent choosing one plot.  And November and December will be for the writing of same.  The first 50,000 words to be written in November, and the remainder in December.  Unless, of course, I have a really good run, then I could... OW!  Okay, okay.  (Watch this space, guys.  Optimism springs eternal...)