Okay, I've actually spent more time waiting for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website to load than actually writing, so that makes me a wee bit cranky.

All because I'm actually at 3,005 words, which is right where I'm supposed to be.

Will I reach 50,000 words by the end of the month? Why not? I've been able to do it before. And my last two manuscripts were waaay longer than 50K.

Of course, both of those took me a little longer than 30 days to write. ;)

But NaNoWriMo is all about the coyote-ugly first draft. It's when you basically throw the words onto the page and hope that it'll all make sense when you read it later. My goal is to turn off my internal editor, which has only gotten louder thanks to feedback on a whole bunch of novel-writing contests I entered over the past few months.

:::pours herself another Diet Coke and fires up the chocolate fountain:::

You know you're in trouble when the Penguins of Panic start cutting up rough about the names you've given your characters. This time around, I went with names that are brand-spanking new to me, free of any connection to people in my past or celebrities or anything written by Stephanie Meyer.

And the Penguins just couldn't get over my hero's name. They even made a little annoying song about it to try and convince me why it sucks. To the tune of "Happy Birthday." I'm not even gonna put it in this blog post because I'm happy with his name, it's NaNo and he's dreamy. As intriguing as a 17-year-old can possibly be.

Ah, the good old days. From, like, five years ago. ;)

It's been such a long time since I've started a fresh new novel that I've forgotten how overwhelming/exciting/mind-blowing it all is. For this moment, whether it lasts another 24 hours or until the middle of the month, I'm in the driver's seat. Ah, the power!

But eventually my brilliantly named characters are going to start doing their own things and making their own decisions. Le sigh. It's so hard when they grow up.

And, to make things even more interesting, I'm trying this novel out in third person with two points of view. This is huge for me, since I'm so comfortable writing in first person. It could be that I'm an only child.

Me, me, me, me...

Okay, Day 3 is almost upon us and I still have 1,495 words to go. Eek!

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