Bring it on.

For the first time in all of October, I have two full days with absolutely nothing planned ahead of me. Of course, they also happen to be the last two days of October, which means they are dedicated to all the projects I need to finish before NaNoWriMo comes charging in.

The two biggest projects? The outline for my NaNo novel, of course. I’m waffling on the ending–how cruel am I going to be to my characters? How closely do I want to weave this one in with the other two (still unwritten) novels set in the same world? How many people are going to end up on the brink of insanity at the end? I know some people would just leave it open and see where it goes, but I’m so not good at that approach. My possible endings diverge too widely, and I have to know which one I’m heading for.

Also, I still have like two-thirds of a close edit of Stone Alliance to finish before I put it away for a month. Who on earth starts a close edit of a manuscript with only a week in which to finish it? Oh, yeah. This crazy person right here. But I hit page 100 today, which was my goal. 160 more pages in two days? I can totally do that. Who needs sleep, anyway?

What are you working on? Are you outlining your NaNo novel or jumping in with your eyes closed?

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October changes

I thrive on trying new things. (In my writing life, obviously–don’t go trying to get me to use a different brand of toothpaste.) The past few weeks, in an effort to cut back on headaches, I’ve been spending as little time as possible in front of my computer screen. And let me tell you, it has been a refreshing change. Aside from completing a hard-copy edit of the sequel to Demon’s Heart, I also pulled out this fabulous little notebook:

…and starting writing by hand for the first time in years. And it’s AMAZING! I love it! There’s something about adding in the uniqueness of your own handwriting to the story that makes it feel even more like your own masterpiece.

I also tried this for the first time ever yesterday:

Note cards, colorful pens, and M&Ms. Again, it was fabulous. Using note cards added a great dimension of flexibility to my planning that just isn’t there in a Word doc. And, you know, a little chocolate never hurt the writing process.

So here I am, congratulating myself on trying so many new things. And then I realize: it’s October. And you know what that means, right? It means writers everywhere are ramping up for that grueling marathon of words so innocuously called NaNoWriMo.

Never in my life have I participated in NaNo. 50K words in a month? Are you nuts?! That’s, like, death by keyboard!

But I’m teetering here, friends. I’m tempted to jump on board. I have two different projects that I could do, and there’s this crazy little voice inside my head that’s screaming for me to go for it.

So should I jump on the NaNo wagon?