83. Take part in NaNoWriMo and finish it

Presenting my biggest and most exciting project of the moment: I'm going to write a book in a month. What? Yes. That's the idea of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). It's an annual event where tens of thousands of people across the whole world (it stopped to be national a long while ago, I guess) write like crazy during the month of November. The purpose is to write 50,000 words. It doesn't matter if that's an utterly crappy story, the manual of a microwave oven, or 50,000 times the word 'hello'. Nobody will read your scribbles unless you show them to someone. That means it's unsure whether you'll actually be writing a 'good book', but hey, how many people are planning on writing one and never getting around to do it? That's where NaNoWriMo comes in.

NaNo is about letting your creativity flow freely. It's about creating a first draft and not stopping after every ten words to edit and correct them. That's what December is good for. You are allowed to think of a plot, setting and characters ahead of time, take notes, create, invent and do exercises as much as you want (October is great for this). Just don't start the actual writing until Midnight, November 1st. On the website, http://www.nanowrimo.org/, there is a huge forum full of tips and tricks, games, jokes, literary analysis and exciting ideas. It's also encouraged to buddy up with some fellow writers and share your experiences. People who have participated in the NaNo madness before are offering their help to newer writers who don't know where to start.

With little over a week to go before the real writing can kick off, I'm excited to start. Somehow I have this blind confidence in thinking this shouldn't be as hard as some people make it seem. With 2,500 words per day (and that's only a few pages), I should hit 50k by November 20th, leaving enough time to say my goodbyes here, prepare, pack my bags and undertake my journey home.

I guess by now you'll be wondering what I plan on writing about. Well, I've thought up a few characters that I'm still developing, a rough story outline and a few funny details. I'll be writing in the Young Adult genre and the title is Storm's Embrace. Here's a tentative plot synopsis:

17-year-old Storm Lancey is an introverted girl who has just moved to a new town and has a hard time finding her place there. She struggles with self-acceptance while living with her frog-collecting, autistic, 15-year-old brother Christopher and colorful, ever-dating mother. When she signs up for a theatre club and rehearses for Romeo & Juliet, fellow actor Kody becomes her best friend and she starts to secretly admire and develop a crush on her rival actress, Tess. Will Storm find her way to deal with things, or will they only take a turn for the worst?

For those of you who think Alamala inspired me to put in Romeo & Juliet: I was actually already planning on doing that. But that play seems to be everywhere these days. I don't believe in coincidences anymore so I'm only getting more inspired by it showing up everywhere.

And then there's banners. There's this thread on the NaNo forums about people who know their way with Photoshop where anyone can leave their request for a signature banner, with hints about what it should look like and what text you would want in it. Low and behold, somebody actually took my request and made mine! This is how my novel is visualized:

This posts consists of 615 words. Those 50k are going to be a breeze, I tell ya.