Surprise Post Sunday!

It’s a surprise because I don’t normally post on Sunday’s, and I don’t know if I ever did…

I’ll revisit that tangent later.

As most in the writing community know, the fast approaching holidays bring with them an event that has little to do with candy, turkeys or tinsel. NaNoWriMo! That thirty-day stretch where, each year, thousands of writers across the world band together with a single goal in mind–50,000 words in one month. I participated for the first time last year, and am eagerly awaiting the 2011 run!

Now, my method of preparation is mix between pantsing and a plotting. Both methods have their pros and cons, and I don’t specifically view one as being so much better than the other. I like my happy middle where I loosely plot out about five chapters, write to catch up, then plot out five more, but this post isn’t about said great debate. My writers group, Novel Clique, firmly believes in having discipline concerning starting new stories. The point of being a writer isn’t to begin a book, it’s to finish one, repeatedly if possible. So we took the whole having-to-start-a-new-project thing and personalized it to having-to-finish-a-current-project.

My WIP Heritage Blade: Awakening is the project I’ve chosen to focus on during NaNo. Oddly enough, I started HB during NaNo last year, but another muse took the reigns and went off in a totally different direction. That lack in discpline I’m working on, heh. Still, I’m about a third of the way done, and after doing the math, I figure I’m about 55k words from the end. The rest of my group is working on manuscripts they’ve only gotten their feet wet on as well.

While I would enjoy breathing life into any of the dozens of ideas crowding around in my subconscious, finishing this story is the higher priority. I have the same goal as everyone else, complete 50,000 words in thirty days or less, I just had to tweak it to fit my overall writing ambitions.

In other news in my little corner of the world, I’ve gotten my first official plug! At least I think it’s my first…I tend to be a little oblivious, so I’ve been told. Now, folks have put in a good word for me before, quite often in fact, but the only reason I say this is official is because it’s not from someone I already know. Not that I don’t appreciate my friends and family talking about my writing–love you guys and what you do!–nor do I view their promoting me is any less important. Just want to make sure that it’s clear there is no comparison to level of significance.

I post on both Harper Collins sites, Inkpop and Authonomy, and imagine my surprise when a friend on the latter linked me this last night. I haven’t stopped smiling yet! It’s driven a lot of traffic to COVETED and I am so thrilled. It totally made my month. A faburlous confidence booster to kick start NaNo preparations.

Are you doing anything special to get ready for NaNoWriMo?

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