It's the eve of NaNoWriMo! I have put a widget on the sidebar where anyone can keep up with how I'm doing on my word count. On top of keeping tabs on my overall word score, it will also mark every day whether I reach 1,667 words (green) or not (red) as well as if I did exceptionally well (dark green) or poorly (dark red). I do anticipate a few dark red days. I may try to take a day off here and there if I am doing well enough with my word count. We'll see. Either way, I was hesitant to include the calendar because I know if I fail epically it will be broadcasted to everyone! On the other hand, keeping everyone else from seeing me fail may be another incentive to write. I will start writing tonight at midnight, so hopefully if you check the calendar on this blog sometime tomorrow, you'll see one little green box. Maybe I'll try to see how many words it takes to get a dark green box.
As I mentally prepared myself this evening to start what I fully anticipate to be an insane month, I sat by a bowl of candy for my first ever Trick or Treaters and watched The Hurricane, the movie based on Rubin Carter going to prison for three murders he did not commit. I picked it because it is the only movie my boyfriend and I own that I had never seen. I'm surprised I hadn't, really. It depicts his relationship with a boy, Lesra, who read and was inspired by the book Rubin wrote in prison. When they finally meet in person, Rubin starts talking about the magic of writing to the boy who is newly literate. I really couldn't have picked a better movie to watch tonight, for that scene on its own.
And then there is also the link between the movie's title and a certain force of destruction that has been terrorizing the east coast.
The NaNo group held a kick-off party on Monday at a martini bar in town. I'm always up for a reason to splurge on a cocktail, but I really enjoyed the event. There were at least 30 people present, so I met a lot of new people as well as received a few more movie suggestions that may help me with inspiration when I get stuck. I'll see them again on Friday for our first NaNo write-in.
My GREs are now over. I'm very happy with my scores, which means I can put most of my efforts into the novel rather than studying for a redo (although I may have to work on graduate school applications now, but we'll get to that later). I went back to planning my novel. Fortunately, I figured out some additional things I can do with Allie's life, and it also strengthened one of my characters in the process. I seem to find that adding connections in my story is a positive thing. Donald Maas recommended it in his book Writing the Breakout Novel, and I'm seeing that he was right. I had hoped I would figured out a little more before November, but people have won this thing with much less planning than I've done. None, even. What I have now will have to be enough. Wish me luck!
I can't believe that with two and half hours to go before November is here, I actually have butterflies.
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