Madness Descends

This time tomorrow I will be madly typing away. That’s right boys and girls, tomorrow is November 1st, official start date for the month long madness that is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This is my third year participating and I’m happy to say the previous two years I’ve managed to meet then exceed the 50,000 word count. I’m hoping this year goes equally as well although the idea I’m working from is a different genre and has a bit of a more complicated story line. And I’m writing in first person, which I normally don’t do. Not sure if I’ll stick with that. I might get two pages in and ditch it for third person.

But I digress.

In preparation for this monumental month of mayhem, I do a few things every year that may seem odd to some.

For starters, I buy a new notebook. Now this may not seem odd to most writers, after all I’m starting a new project. But this notebook will not be used for the NaNo project. I already have a notebook half filled for that. No, this notebook will sit in the stack of other notebooks (I admit, there are a number of them and I needed another like a hole in the head) until some later date. But it sure is pretty. Hard sturdy back cover and a very pretty red cover with white swirls on it.

Then, I do up a monthly calendar to figure out what is going on that month. Not that it matters really because all my writing is done between 6:00 am to 8:15 am and I don’t schedule any appointments during this time, so… I don’t know, but the calendar gets colour coded and slapped on the refrigerator door. There’s something about a schedule that makes me feel calm.

And thirdly, and this is perhaps the most weird of the preparatory to dos – I cut my nails. Stop screwing up your faces. This makes perfect sense. I type much faster with short nails. I make fewer mistakes. There is a significant difference in word count when my nails are short and sailing across the keyboard unfettered then when they are longer and clacking away at the keys in an annoying fashion. Trust me.

So there you have it. I have my notebook, my calendar is on the fridge, and my newly buffed short nails are ready to fly.

If anyone else is signing up for NaNo, feel free to add me as a friend. You’ll find me under lochbriar.

Good luck NaNo-ers!