Ryan Nakabayashi

Well, time to get this show on the road! I’ve known it’s been coming for a few weeks now, and ready or not, it’s time to kick off the NaNoWriMo.

November, the perfect time to write 50k words in a novel form. The weather is chilly enough to discourage doing any other outdoor activities (except for training for that marathon-thing…) and perfect for spending time writing in a coffee shop

The daily goal of 1700 words is proving to be quite tough, and today’s total so far is 850. Granted I started writing around 11pm, and as it’s past midnight, so I probably should stop for tonight.  The tiredness is having an adverse affect (or is it effect, I can never remember) on the words I’m trying to string together. I’m finding as it gets later and later, there are move and more passages that I don’t even really remember writing.

Since tonight won’t be a goal-hitting kind of night, it’s going to make tomorrow pretty tough: 2,500 words. Whew, that’s going to be a big writing day. In addition to needing to create 2,500 words out of the ether, there’s still lots to prep for our annual turkey fry / LSU v. Alabama game. Cleaning the house, yard, and brining the turkey are all also on the docket for tomorrow. Thug Life.

Post Script:

I had to edit this post the following morning, apparently being really tired and blogging aren’t a great idea – who knew?

Ah Novemember, it brings crisp fall air, changing leaves, the food onslaught of Thanksgiving, and it’s National Novel Writing Month. I too was surprised at the last one. Everything has a month now – how are we supposed to keep up?

Every November, a non-profit called The Office of Letters and Lights (nope, no clue why they’re called that) holds a competition affectionately known as NaNoWriMo. The challenge they lay forth is to write a full 50,000 word novel in the month of November. The trick is that it’s not a competition with anyone else: just you, the keyboard, and the 50k words you can dredge up in 30 days.

It works out to 1,667 words per day, which is an audacious goal, but one I think I can tackle. And to make sure I stay on track, I’ve personally (and now publicly) challenged my friend Colby to do it with me. Well, it’s a bet actually. The stakes? Taking an inspiration from Trading Places, the bet is: the first one to finish gets one U.S. dollar.

In addition to the weighty 1700 words per day, I’d like to add an extra 200 words to the blog every day – just to keep my progress updated. But I guess we’ll see how it shakes out in two weeks when the competition gets started. Wait, it’s only 2 weeks away?? I’d better go get started planning!