Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

In about three hours Eastern Time USA, November 1^st, NaNoWriMo begins. What the heck is NaNoWriMo? Easy—Thirty days and nights of literary abandon. National Novel Writing Month. You aim to write a novel of 50K words in a month’s time. That means you write 1,667 words a day for thirty days. Most novels are more than 50K words, but you have to admit it’s a great start. You will find people around the world doing this. In fact, part of the world has already reached November 1^st.

Wait, there is much more to this. You know that inner editor that sits on your shoulder beside your muse? Sorry, but he/she has to go. Send “it” on a vacation. Give your muse a break from the little critter/pest. *My muse is a she. I call her sexy innocence. I don’t know why she is wearing wings today. I think she’s celebrating because the inner editor is packing. Really, she does just about anything she wants, and I let her.

I’m not here to give advice about NaNoWriMo right now because you can find information all over the web.

I only wanted to say that I’m doing my third year, and I’ve won the first two. I added a word counter to my website if you want to keep up. I will update on Google Plus and Facebook (in the sidebar) occasionally, but the word counter automatically counts daily, or how ever often I add my word count to the NaNoWriMo site.

This year my project is the sequel to my book—Howdy, Ma’am. (You know I had to get that in.) I might be a little busy for the next month. I sent my edits back today, but, if my editor were to return it this month, of course, that would be my priority. This trip is nearly over. Tomorrow will be two years I started writing Howdy, Ma’am. Wow! Two years to write a novel. It wasn’t like I stopped living for two years to write a 106K novel. This was written over a period of time. More about that later.

The sequel–oh, please let me say this one more time–the sequel, my NaNoWriMo 2012 novel, is somewhat plotted and outlined. Not the kind of outline you’d recognize because I hate doing outlines, but it’s the kind that makes sense to me. Some of it surprised me. I’m sure there are many more surprises. I can tell by looking at the mood the muse is in. But, you know what? I like when she gets spunky. It’s usually to my advantage, and eventually yours.

So, here’s to thirty days and nights of literary abandon. Good luck to you if you’re participating.  If you want to add me, my NaNo name page is: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/maryjdressel

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