Random Rant Thursday: NaNoWriMo is about to begin and 99 cent books

Halloween is upon us, which means today is October 31, and subsequently (or rather, obviously) tomorrow is November 1, the day where Ender's Game is coming out (Which I'm going to go see tonight in an early showing) and the day that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) officially begins.

For those of you who dont know what NaNoWriMo is, its basically a project the whole month of November that a bunch of writers/wannabe writers set aside to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Technically you win if you reach the goal, so there are tons of winners at the end of the month, but realistically you win if you write anything at all during that month since those words are words that would probably not have been written otherwise.

Last year, I got a friend of mine involved, username: La'Mar Nelson, and he only made it to 18,724 words, but in my opinion, those are words that would never have been written otherwise. He's going to try again this year and try to actually win. I've also talked little sis, and my cousin into doing it. I'll add their usernames once they actually make an account.

The more I look at lasy year's novel, the more I dislike where it went. I started it before NaNoWriMo began, and only counted the words written during the month, but still, I had no idea where I wanted the novel to go, and as a result, I have a feeling the book goes almost nowhere. I havent given up on it, but I've decided to take a big break from it. This year, I'm taking a different approach. I've followed some of the tims for what to do the month before NaNoWriMo begins and outlined my story, and some main things I want to happen, and I'm going to follow that as much as possible. Perhaps that will help me, only time will tell.

This year, I think I'm more excited than I was last year. This is a new story I get to jump into and create; new characters to meet, and its all really exciting. It's going to be rough, as it always is, and I'm going to want to quit, as I did last year, but eventually I'll get through it, and I'll have something to show for myself, after all, how much can one really go through in just 30 days.

If you want to add me as a buddy on NaNoWriMo, my username is Beckoned By Books. If you can't find me that way feel free to use my email address to add me smleach540 at yahoo dot com.

I'll see you on the otherside (or rather, I'll see you on Monday....when my next review goes live.)

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? What's your username? Are you excited?

[edit] Oh and I have a random announcement that's completely unrelated to anything else in this post....I've just checked out one of Karina Halle's blog posts and it says that for the month of November, all her Experiment in Terror books are only 99 Cents.  Karina is one of my favorite authors, so this is the perfect opportunity for you to find out exactly why I love her so much.