If it weren’t for National Novel Writing Month, I would likely still be in denial that it is already November. But here we are again, November first, day one of NaNoWriMo madness. This is my fourth time participating, and I went back and forth on whether or not I should. It wasn’t a question of time because I just finished my first semester of grad school in Australia, and the academic schedule means summer and holidays are rolled into one insanely long break. My schedule is, for the first time in a very long time, wide open.

But the thing about grad school is I have to write a dissertation. I spent a large chunk of my first semester doing research and I’m now at the point where I should start writing. So while I love NaNo, my brain told my heart that I should be practical and work on my thesis project because time has this way of getting away from us.

I’m not always the most practical person, however.

That is why I have decided to dedicate this month to writing. Writing, writing, and more writing. I’m doing NaNoWriMo and tweeting about it daily. I also just found out about the first ever Academic Book Writing Month. As I’ve mentioned before, I feed off of the excitement and inspiration from fellow writers. By participating in both events, I hope to stay motivated to write daily, even when I get stuck on dialogue or can’t stand to look at another footnote. As I am writing, whether it be fiction or academic, I’ll be tracking the progress on Twitter using #NaNoWriMo and #AcBoWriMo. Please follow along, or better yet, join me. Let’s all make the clackity noise.

Near the end of National Novel Writing Month, GalleyCat announced a student designer was taking requests for book covers. That designer was Fena Lee, and I jumped at the opportunity to see what she would design for The Book of Coroc. I didn’t give her much to go with other than the somewhat vague description I had hastily written earlier in the month for my “Novel Info” section.

Xan is just a girl in the big city, trying to make ends meet. But all that changes when a mysterious book comes into her possession, along with a green-eyed stranger of few words and a price on her head from another world. Xan must learn how to harness the powers of the book if she is to save her world and many others from the Silver Queen and her army of tech clones.

The result:

After a month filled with frenzied writing, a rising urge to delete everything, and buckets of coffee, it is pretty amazing to see a visual interpretation of my concept. Kudos to Fena on the cover and the idea to use NaNoWriMo to hone her skills and build her portfolio. Be sure to check out all of her covers and submit your own novel if you participated.

National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner, and I’m super geeked. I’m not the only one:

Hello Wrimos.
Look at your novel, now back to mine, now back at your novel, now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn’t mine, but if you started writing 1667 words a day it could be as long as mine.
Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at your computer WITH THE NOVEL YOUR NOVEL COULD LOOK LIKE.
What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s the remains of your silenced inner editor.
Look again.
THE EDITOR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible with NaNoWriMo.
I’m on a forum.

— Hero, via Something Magic

If you’re also NaNo-ing this year, feel free to add me. If you’re still debating whether or not to NaNo, stop. Hammer time. Sign up, it’s a month of fun, mad writing with people all over the world. In the meantime, let’s start working “the editor is now diamonds” into everyday conversations.

If I make the clackity noise long enough every day, the ‘writing’ seems to take care of itself.
- Merlin Mann

National Novel Writing Month 2009 is finished, and I ended with a final word count of 65,194. I still have some sections to write and I expect a large chunk of what I have written to be either completely thrown out or heavily edited, but I enjoyed the writing process this time around much more.

When I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2006, I knew a few people who were writing, and I knew there were local write-ins happening, but I flew solo. I struggled to reach 50,000 words and the final novel wasn’t something I was satisfied with at all — to the point that I put it away and haven’t looked at it since.

One of the key factors in this year’s success was that I participated with people. I got active on social networks, drawing a lot of inspiration and motivation from fellow writers through Twitter and Facebook. I also organized a handful of write-ins, which not only helped me stay accountable, but also gave me the chance to make new friends. While the writing was still a solo act, it was something that I could experience with others, even if we were just silently typing away as fast as we could.

So now that November is over, what’s next? My plan is to shelve this book for a bit, let it breathe over the holidays before I go back and finish. March is National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo), which may be good inspiration for that part of the writing stage.

And the first novel, the one that I haven’t revisited since 2006? I had an “aha!” moment during a write-in this year and realized how to rewrite the ending to make it work, so I’m looking forward to tackling that as well.

Thank you to everyone who kept me motivated, from family to friends to fellow writers. You helped make this a successful NaNoWriMo, and I appreciate you putting up with me over the 30 days of madness.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, has officially kicked off.

What is NaNoWriMo? It’s a writing frenzy that takes place every November, meant to inspire people who always say they want to write a novel but never have the time. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, focusing on sheer output instead of quality.

When the Twitter buzz started up about NaNoWriMo this year, I thought back to my first (and previously my only) experience. Much to my surprise, it was three years ago that I wrote my first novel — and truth be told, I haven’t touched it since.

But I knew that I wanted to participate again, not to “win” by writing a novel, but to feed off of the excitement and inspiration from fellow writers and encourage myself to set aside time each day to write — something I should be doing already, but “get too busy”. I’m already enjoying having time specifically for writing, so I hope I can keep up the habit after November ends.

If you are also doing National Novel Writing Month or would like to track my progress, you can find me here.