NaNoWriMo, Dawgs

It's finally November 1st. Last night I met up with a local group of writers who will join me in writing 50,000 words in the form of a novel. We do this during the month of November. This is National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org) and we are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of participants worldwide. At the end of the month, we either make our word goal or we don't. It's all on the honor system, and I believe most of the writers involve take that very seriously. After all, we don't actually win anything, unless you count a nice badge to put on your website, and bragging rights. Or if you don't count the fact that just writing toward that goal makes you feel as if you accomplished great things, because you did.

Anyway, some of the group arrived at the restaurant around 8:00pm yesterday evening. I got there about an hour later. The last arrival showed up around 10:00pm. We couldn't start writing until November 1st, so had to keep ourselves occupied until 12:01am.We ate, we drank, we talked about our novels, our challenges, we joked around and laughed. A few people left before midnight. By 11:30pm there were seven of us. We started pulling out laptops and netbooks.

As the minutes ticked by, there were several moments of silence. There was a bit of electricity in the air, excitement and impatience building. Some of us slipped away to the restroom. Everyone had laptops fired up and fingers at the ready.

Finally, midnight, and it was time to type. Our group finally quieted down, and we all hit the keyboards. This was my first write-in, and to join in at midnight was amazing. I had no idea where to start, but I just typed. After about an hour, I decided I better get home and catch some sleep, and when I checked I had 1100 words posted. Amazing, since I started with a blank page and an almost blank mind.

I had a wonderful night of camaraderie with my fellow Treasure Valley NaNo writers. Even though we are loosely organized, we all agreed that regular writing meetings would be helpful. It sure kickstarted my novel!

This is probably not my most interesting blog, and most likely not even that well-written or organized. My mind is not on the blog right now, it's on the novel that will be unfolding before my eyes. I sure wish I could use this blog to boost my novel's word count but since I'm not writing about a writer writing NaNo, it just won't work.

Happy Writing Everyone!