Gearing up for Nanowrimo

I've got a plan. I've decided to spend the month of October writing an outline, character sketches, setting descriptions and more in order to be ready for Nanowrimo. For those who don't know, Nanowrimo is National Novel Writng Month and it happens every November thanks to the ingenuity of Chris Baty. I participated last in 2006 and am proud that I reached the finish line - a rough draft of 50,000 words.

For some of us, we need Nanowrimo to get our bottoms in the chair and our pens moving across the paper (or fingers tapping the keyboard). For me, having been a freelance writer used to working with a set deadline, fiction has been a tough change. As exciting as the prospect of creating worlds and stories is, I have found it very difficult to work every day without a deadline date circled on my calendar. I've even tried to make my own deadlines, only to see those dates come and gone and still no further along in my work.

Nanowrimo is the push that some writers need to get moving and keep moving. With a goal of 1,667 words to write daily, you not only have to answer to yourself, but to the thousands of other particpants that flock to the Nanowrimo boards. Some days it can be exciting and the words flow like water bursting a dam. Then there are those days where each word is achingly slow, painfully placed on the page, while a little voice (that nasty inner editor) whispers "it's no good anyway". Yet you churn on, eager to exchange your daily word count with fellow Nanowrimos.
So with my copy of "No Plot? No Problem!", the famous Chris Baty book, in my hand and a fresh new notebook on my desk, I sit here bright eyed, planning, dreaming and waiting for November 1st, for yet another chance to put that novel on paper that I know I can write.