Check this out!

http://www.wordle.net/

I couldn't make it work at work.  But I WANT to....  Leave a comment if it works for you!

Final Countdown NaNoWriMo 2010

This says it all about today's Nano!

We did it!!

We did it!!  The three of us finished our 50k last night!  Honestly, I was beginning to wonder it I was going to make it.  I was running out of steam and there seemed to be so many other things that I needed to do.  You know those important things, like laundry, dishes, Thanksgiving, and putting up a Christmas tree.  (none of which I have finished yet, except Thanksgiving).  Thank goodness for Allen and Shari.  Allen came over with his lap top yesterday.  We both sat at the kitchen table and had word war after word war until it was finished.  We skyped Shari in a few times to battle and then to toast. 

Shari's fingers flew over the keyboard and she smoked us to the finish line.  Allen was close behind her and beat me by a full 2000 words, then they patiently waited for me to catch up while challenging me and adding to their own word counts. 

I love the feeling of finishing a NaNoWriMo.  I'm a finisher.  A winner!  My story isn't finished yet.  I have some work to do still.  The third island is taking more than I planned and I think when editing comes around I'm going to find that I will need to add to the first two islands and trim from the third.  I thought that I was going to take December off from writing, but when I woke up this morning I was anxious to get behind the keyboard again.  So maybe I'll keep writing through December.  I think it will be wisest if I do.  I don't want to forget where I'm going with the story and I'm not to far off.  My goal is to have it all written by the end of January.  That gives me 60 days to finish up.  I know I can do that.  I just did 50,000 words in 30 days!!

Thanks for everything guys!!  This was amazing!  We only have 11 months until we start it all over.  Start outlining now!!!

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day.  A day to spend with your family and be thankful for all we have.  Our health, our family, our friends, and in this economy our jobs.  This year I am also thankful for Nano.  Without it I may not have found the courage and the focus to write my story for many more years, if ever.  Without the Nano challenge I may not have the support from my friends and family to be able to work on the story.  I do have that support this November, and I'm thankful for it.

Tomorrow is also the first day that the Nano website opens up the word count validater.  That feels like a deadline.  The validater is only open for 5 days.  From November 25 through the 30th.  I still have 8000 words to type up in order to reach the goal, and now the pressure is back on.  I'm afraid that if I get the words in at the last minute the website will be overwhelmed with other Wrimo's who finished at the last possible moment and it could crash.  What if it can't get to me and I don't win?  I know that I will "win" whether the site counts my words or not.  I will finish.  But I really want the purple bar. 

That's right.  The blue bars on the nano site that track your word count progress turn green when you have reached the 50,000 word count.  Then they turn purple when the site validates it.  Tomorrow we will see green bars turning purple as those who have reached 50K already get their rewards.   I'm looking forward to seeing my bar turn those colors.  It's like getting a gold star!  (which I also really like)  

It's the little things for me.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I'm thankful for you as well.

EDIT:  Someone in Australia already has the purple bar, I just saw it change....  *sigh*

TSoD

I dreamed about the Travelling Shovel of Death last night.  It wasn't a scary dream and it was unrelated to my story, but I can't remember any of it now.  Only that I was surprised to be dreaming about the TSoD and trying to work in my story to make the dream make sense. 

November is catching up with me. 

I'm pushing for my 40,000 today (How did I get so behind? Oh, that's right, I did some fun things this weekend.  That was the trade off I guess.).  My buddies are both quite a bit ahead of me at the moment.  That is what is motivating me to keep going.  I hate being LAST.

Race time!!

Race to 40,000....

Shariware you are welcome to join us (I'm afraid we have a slight head start, but you have flying fingers, so I'm not sure who should be more worried actually).

Garnet Gal (Clementine) and RamblingAllen are racing to 40,000 words.  Allen beat me to 30,000 by the skin of his teeth!!!  I'm not planning to slack off this time, but I do have a lot on my plate the next 48 hours or so. 

Here is hoping Allen can't find the time to write any more easily than I can this weekend!! 

And we're off!!.......................

New Words and Old Words.

Each year Websters dictionary adds new words to its files.  (I say "files" because who had a current dictionary in their home these days?  If you want to look up a word where do you go?  Online.  hence - files.)  I don't know if they remove any.  Does the dictionary simply continue to get bigger each year as we make up new words?   

Here is a list of some of the words that were added in 2009.  I didn't find the 2010 list and assume that it hasn't been released yet. 
staycation
carbon footprint
green collar
earmark
waterboarding
cardioprotective
locavore
naproxen
neuroprotective
docusoap
fan fiction
flash mob
reggaeton
sock puppet
vlog
webisode
haram
memory foam
missalette
zip line

I don't think many of those would be hard to add to our Nanovels.  Old words are trickier.

I found a website called Save The Words.  It's a cute site, you should check it out.  http://www.savethewords.org/. 

So when you're going about your blateration, I would be gnathonized if you used some of these floculations in your Nanovel.   It's a challenge. 
 
Happy writing!
 
PS.  Blogger spell check didn't like many of the news words and none of the old ones...

Word Counts and Dedications

WORD COUNTS

Have you been following the forums?  Have you seen how many people have already crossed the 50,000 word mark?  Let me tell you, it's a lot.  And people started crossing the path last week (several in the first week, even).  I've seen people posting of the forums who have over 100,000 words. 

My first instinct is to be jealous of these authors.  My second is to be skeptical.

When I click on the authors information I see that, more often than not, these are people who live and breathe writing.  They are prolific writers and have serious hobbies.  So I'm jealous of the time they have available to write.  This is a generalization here:  I haven't looked at every single profile, but of the ones that I have clicked on; it does turn out that they often have nothing else to do.  No job to go to, no family to cook for or tuck into bed, and sometimes no lover to warm the sheets for them.  I have all of those things which takes up time which I could be writing.  But I wouldn't be happy without them (well, maybe without the job, but who wouldn't be?).

I'm skeptical of their word counts.  Maybe not necessarily the count itself, though early on in the month I certainly was.  I find I'm skeptical of the quality.  Could this really be great writing done so fast.  The answer is yes.  It could absolutely be fantastic writing that I would enjoy reading.  But the chances are it's not.  However, that's true of the novels that are only 15,000 words in as well.  These are still only rough drafts.  And for some of us, these are simply practice.  As Randy Ingermanson said "you get good at writing fiction by writing fiction".   It takes practice.  Going slow or fast does not ensure quality, only quantity. 

So, I guess I have to just learn to ignore those bars that turned green when the author hit 50,000.  There will be more and more of those as the month goes on.  I've just got concentrate on my own writing to make sure it's something I'd read and to hit the 50,000 mark.  This is great practice. 

DEDICATIONS

Are you thinking about putting a dedication in your Nanovel?  I saw the question posed in a forum and was surprised that I hadn't thought of it.  I like to read them in novels.  I love it when they are funny and not just a list of thank yous.  I like to see them in codes that only the recipients of the thank you would understand.  It feels like reading a secret love letter when it's coded. 

The forum had Wrimo's posting their dedications.  Many went to deceased parents and grandparents.  Many went to best friends who had put up with Wrimo's during the month of November craziness.  And some went to spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends who helped with the daily to do list in November. 

I haven't written one (and won't for this month unless I need a short burst of word count to finish, which I don't anticipate).  I know who to thank in the dedication.  I know who my true supporters are.  And I hope that they all already know that I love them and thank them for their valuable time and effort this month and every month.  But the dedication isn't for thanking people for their help on the published book  It is supposed to be a meaningful tribute for someone important.  So I think I'll thank my friends and family personally, and I'll dedicate the book to Mr. Ian Woon.

NaNo made it to The Snowflake Guy's E-zine.

I get a monthly E-Zine from an author named Randy Ingermanson.  Almost every month there is something in there that teaches me to think about my writing differently, even for just a second.  This month he talks about cliff hangars and how to keep the reader on the hook...  It's quite interesting and I will be using some of his tips in the next few chapters.  He started this months e-zine talking about his feelings on NaNoWriMo.  And it makes sense to me!   I've added it here.   I'd be happy to forward the email to you if you want it.  Let me know.  :) 

National Novel Writing Month


The biggest mistake fiction writers make is failing to spend enough hours actually writing fiction.  That seems odd, doesn't it? A tennis player gets good by playing tennis. A pilot gets good by flying. Seems like a fiction writer would know that you get good at writing fiction by writing fiction.

The trouble is that it's easy to sit down and start a novel. That hard part is staying seated and continuing to write. The excitement of doing the exact same thing as Stephen King and Nora Roberts lasts about twenty
minutes.

After that, reality sets in. A typical novel is 60000 to 120000 words. Even if you could type 100 words per
minute, it would take ten to twenty hours to type it all in.

But very few writers can write fiction at 100 words per minute. A novelist who puts out 1000 words per hour is considered pretty fast. That amounts to fewer than 17 words per minute.

So now the job amounts to 60 to 120 hours -- if you're fast.

If you can only squeeze out 100 words per hour, it's going to run you 600 to 1200 hours to get that first draft done. And yes, some writers have trouble managing that pace. It's slower than two words per minute, or
about one letter every six seconds.

Writing a novel is a boatload of work.

What this means is that a lot of novelists never finish their novel. They'll get rolling, type out a chapter or two, take it to a critique group, and then realize that this writing game is a whole harder than it looks.

It's easy to fill up your time doing all the other good things that a novelist needs to do. Reading excellent fiction. Studying the craft. Getting critiqued. Planning the novel.

But never actually writing the darned thing.

That's why I like National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is simple: Write 50000 words in 30 days. That's 1666 words per day -- a challenging goal, but doable.
There are critics who'll tell you that, oh sure, you can drill out a crappy novel in 30 days, but it's impossible to write a good one in that length of time.

Sure, it's impossible if you believe it's impossible. But I know a fair number of published novelists who've
written a novel in 30 days or less. Good novels --ready to go to the publisher for editing. Some of these
folks are New York Times best-selling authors. Others have won major awards.

If you can write a novel at all, you can write one in 30 days. If your skills aren't up to snuff yet, then no, you can't write a good novel in 30 days. But if you have good craft, then yes, you can write an excellent novel in 30 days.

Either way, fire breeds fire, and fiction writing breeds fiction writing. If you take the NaNoWriMo challenge and meet your goal, you're going to stretch yourself as a writer. You'll come out of it a better and more confident writer.

Most importantly, you'll have done something that only a small fraction of people on this planet have ever done. You'll have written a complete novel.

Whether the quality is good or not, quantity matters. Having done it the first time is the best indicator that you'll do it again.

You may be wondering if I eat my own dog food. Have I ever written a novel in 30 days? The answer is yes. I did it once, under a tight deadline. But it wasn't a mere 50000 words. It was 90000 words. It was hard work, 3000 words per day, and for most of those days I thought I was going to die.

But I didn't die. I wrote the thing in a white fury. The faster I wrote, the easier it came. I finished the book a day early. It was my best piece of work.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

If so, carry on. Don't stop now. Losers quit. Winners can't.

If you're not doing it this year, think about next year. What have you got to lose by trying? You grow by
challenging yourself and then executing the challenge.

You can check out National Novel Writing Month here: http://www.NaNoWriMo.org


Distasteful legal babble that Randy Ingermanson asks to be added if someone uses his e-zine in a personal blog:  Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing
E-zine, with more than 23,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction,
AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

The Third Week!!

According to the forums, which I haunt regularly these days as if I have nothing else to do, say that week 2 is the hardest one.  They way I understand it the first week is like a honeymoon; your are all set to write and can't wait to see what the future holds, everything is rosy.  Week 2 is when you figure out that being married is hard work; your writing has become harder to schedule and your story has gone where you didn't expect it to and it worries you. Week 3 is when you get yourself back on track and it starts to feel better and kind of normal, like you meant for it to happen like that. Week 4 is the sprint to the finish line.

Today we are exactly halfway through the month.  If you aren't halfway done writing by the days end, you are running behind.  It's one of those days where you can measure your progress.  Some people can also say that they are halfway through with their novel.  I thought that I was going to be one of those people.  They way I had it planned in my head (because I never got it fully written out on paper) I would be turning a corner into the third section of my story.  Surprisingly, I can see the corner from here, but I'm not close enough to it to make the turn yet, without running into an obstacle.  And I'm fine with that.  

50,000 words is simply the target for November.  It doesnt' have to define my novel and put it in a box that is only 50,000 words big.  I'm hopeful that the words will tumble over the top of the box.  Many of them will be edited out and thrown away anyway. 

Allen and I challenged each other to race from 25,000 to 30,000 by midnight (last night).  The last to reach the deadline owed the other coffee one morning this week.  This is a typical tortoise and the hare story.  I chugged along all day (and talked smack to Allen during the coarse of it).  At 29,500 words, I have family obligations that I was glad to stop writing for.  In hindsight, I could have asked my husband for a few more minutes.  I was on a roll and only had 2 paragraphs more to write (more or less) to win.  I didn't though.  I thought about the finish line at midnight and knew that Allen had things to do during the day as well.  And I assumed I would be able to plunk out those last few words after dinner and still cross the finish line first.   Guess what...  he beat me.  And I'm glad!!!  I'm excited to have coffee with my friend this week.  We have seen very little of each other this month.  I'm happy that his word count pushed to 30k (and mine is so close).  I'm glad that I was able to tangent off for a whole day on a character whose back story turned out to be sort of important.  Almost 5000 words have been written, just to get me to the bridge so I can go to the next island.

I'm thankful for the writing time I got this weekend.  I won't have that next weekend and I'm already mourning that.  Now, I'll just concentrate on keeping my word count up each day and I'll finish well ahead of time.  Week 3!!  It's too late to turn back now. I'm 3/5 of the way there!!! 

Happy writing!!

Plot Devices and Word Padding

     There are two plot devices that float around the Nano universe.  Well, there are more than two, I'm sure, but these two are annually reoccurring and specific to Nano only.  Mr. Ian Woon and the Travelling Shovel of Death (TSoD). 

     Mr. Ian Woon is an anagram for NaNoWriMo.  The trick is simply to work him into your novel somewhere.  I think this one can be fairly simple.  "The grocers name tag said Mr. Ian Woon, though I knew his name was Fred." "The science teacher was a very tall, very dark skinned, man whose name was Mr. Ian Woon.  MC thought that was not a fitting name for a man who more resembled a star basketball player rather than a geeky oriental physicist".  (lots of stereotyping in that last one, sorry).   It could be the name of the cab driver, a high school boyfriend, the boy who sat next to you in first grade.  There are a lot of possible ways to mention him in passing.   
    I had considered making him a prison guard in my story.  But I think then his title would have had to change to Sergeant, or... officer(?), and the Mr. is pretty important.  I'm planning to put him in somewhere.  I think it is a very fun Easter Egg to place in the story.  Imagine reading a book that you picked up at your favorite Bookseller and finding Mr. Ian Woon flit through the pages.  You would certainly know that the author went through the same brain damage that you've gone through this November!

    The Travelling Shovel of Death is harder to work in.  The point here is to kill off a character in an unexpected fashion.  That might be hard to work in for some novels.  How often is your character carrying around a shovel?  Probably not often, unless he is a gardener or works at a graveyard or a mine (not a lot of mining done with shovels these days either).  But you can work it into a newspaper article that has your heroine running to her lovers arms from the gruesomeness of the murder that was commit with, of all things, a shovel, or the hero was injured and was crawling to safety when the Fairy attacked again.  The hero reached out to find something to defend himself with and his hand came upon the handle of a carelessly mislaid shovel.  He waved the shovel blindly in the air and came into contact with something.  The iron shovel sliced through the fairy like butter killing him instantly (Fairy's are allergic to iron and lemon juice.  I read OK?).
    I'm struggling with working this one in.  There *may* be a point to incorporate it.  But it may be a stretch for the story that I am doing.  Oh wait... I might have another opportunity.  I just thought of something new.  I guess at the very least I can use it to build my word count if I get to a point where I'm stuck.  In the meantime it's there in the back of my mind.

I don't get it

I read a lot of junk on the internet.  I can waste more time than I care to consider while surfing.  Sometimes I have been known to laugh out loud at my desk and quickly think up a reason when someone walks by and asks me "what's funny".  I can't very well tell them I was reading about a 6 year old girl, who I don't know, asking for ice for her hand because she was practicing Kung Fu on the chair, and was surprised that they chair "has skills!".  Nope, I couldn't say that so I made something up about the time. 

Anyway....ever since I read Harry Potter and discovered that there are web site run by fans specifically for those book I have been fascinated with the idea of  "fan fiction" .  There are fan fic writers for everything! All the book series that I enjoy as well as many that I don't.  From HP and Outlander to Star Trek and Twilight.  I haven't read any fan fiction other than a few blurbs that show up on some of those websites.  I see some forum posts from people who are writing it as their Nano this year.

I don't get it.  I'm the first to admit that I can be so attached to good characters and stories that I dream about them and long for the next story.  But I'm not about to write that story.  That isn't my place.  Those stories were shared by the authors not given to us to manipulate. The story and the characters still belong to those authors.  We are fortunate enough to have a chance to enjoy those stories, but it isn't our place to write them.   I've heard that some fan fiction is fantastic.  It is written in the same tone as the original author and feels like an extension of the story (I can't believe it all is though).  So my question is this:  If these people are talented enough to write wonderful fan fiction, why can't they write their own stories? 

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  I suppose some authors are flattered by the fan fic written about their own stories.  But I think I'd be offended.  That might not be where I want my character to go.  I may want certain couples to stay broken up, no matter how good readers thought they were together.  I might want the spaceship to crash into the moon and kill everyone but the antagonist, and not have the white mice survive and save the day.  I certainly don't want to see my innocent characters doing dirty things to each other, while the racy characters watch from the background.  I'm with DG of Outlander fame on this one.   The author of the Outlander series has asked her fans NOT to write fan fic, or at least not post it online.  I say "don't write it".  Write your own story.  You're talented and creative and you want to write. 

Go write!  Make it YOURS!!!

One week down!

One week of Nanowrimo is under our belts and three weeks remain!!!  Congrats to those who have stuck it through so far.  I know I couldn't do it without the support of my friends and family!  And what support I have this year. Friends text me encouraging words.  A family member asks about my word count each night.  My husband sends me off to type while he cooks. 

And I'm on schedule.  In fact, I'm a few hundred words ahead of schedule.  Not enough to be cocky and take a day off, but enough to keep me feeling comfortable with my own pace.  I can take a day off of writing if I need to.  So far I do not need to.  Word wars keep me caught up and in my free time I type up a paragraph or add in a detail I thought of. 

I've divided my novel into three parts (not including wrap up and conclusion).  I consider them "islands" and they need "bridges" to connect to each other (thanks RamblingAllen for that analogy).  On each island are a few "areas". And those need connectors as well, "trails" maybe?  These areas may become the chapters as the novel gets revised.  So far each day I've been working on a different "area" on the first island.  These are all mapped out in my outline (but I did find I needed a few connectors to get from one to the other and wrote more than a few "trails" as well).  Now I find that I am finished with my first "island". 

I'm finished with the first 1/3 of the book!!  First off: How did that happen?  Secondly: Now what??  I feel just as anxious to start the next part tonight as I did to kick off Nano 2010.  If I keep on this track, which I hope to do, I will finish the second island this week and move onto the 3rd.  The last week can be reserved for both concluding the book and/or tying up loose ends.  That being said, I think the 2nd and 3rd parts will be more difficult to write and may need more time.  As long as I keep up the word count, I don't think there are any rules about actually finishing your rough draft in one month.  The goal is to write 50,000 words, not a complete book. 

So maybe I shouldn't be too concerned with the schedule.  Maybe I should simply concentrate on writing the story and let the areas, trails, bridges, and islands work themselves out as I go along. 

Whatever happens next I know that I'm looking forward to it.  My characters seem to be introducing themselves to me and I learn more about them each day and I look forward to letting them talk each evening. 


Great job catching up on your word count this weekend shariware!!!  I look forward to whomping you in the next word war!!!

Quick word war fun!

I have spent more time in the Nano forums than any other year.  I think this might be part of the key to me staying motivated.  It's been fun interacting with people who are in the same boat as I am.  In addition to Shariware and Ramblingallen, of coarse!!

I found Write or Die last week.  I blogged about that already here.  Today I found a random number generator.  You just click on the link then it gives you a number between 1 and 1000.  It's fun to click then make yourself write that number ASAP.  I got 793.  Crud.... I'd better get busy writing, I couldn't get off easy and only get 100.  

Now GO!!!

Two Full Days In

Two days of making my minimum word count and beyond!  Two days of Nano down!  Two days of typing furiously at the computer and being astonished at what comes out.  This is going pretty well so far!

Last night I did my first "Word War" with my writing buddy.  We were both behind on daily word count going into it and ahead when we came out!  It was great.  We simply set a goal of typing the most words we could manage in an hour.  Amazing what happens when you just give yourself permission to just brain dump.  I did learn that it will take me more than an hour each day to make the minimum daily word count.  Which means I simply can NOT let myself get behind.  Catching up might be nearly impossible for me.  I'm having trouble carving out the time as it is.  But I'm up for more word wars anytime!
I discovered (I'm probably late in the game discovering this) a Word War program online.  It's called Write or Die.  It's only $10 to have an at home version.  I did a quick 10 minute free online Word war and thought it was hilarious.  I put 350 words down to.  :)  I haven't purchased it yet, but I think I probably will as a reward for keeping my word count up the first week!!

I have learned that writing conversations is difficult for me.  I never considered that much because I have conversations with myself going on in my head all the time. :)  But it's a different thing putting that to paper.  In my head I can differentiate the voices and I know who is talking.  On paper I have to tell the reader who is talking and how they sound, what emotions they are trying to portray in their voices. 
As a side note, I have a character who does talk to himself out loud, it isn't supposed to make a lot of sense most of the time and he rambles and mumbles.  That is fun to write so far.

I'm learning to sort of let go.  Wrimo's online call is turning off your inner editor.  There is a tendency to read what was written and revise it.  November is not the time to do that.  I have given myself permission to suck.  This is a draft and drafts are not meant to be works of art.  I don't rewrite anything, but I have gone back when I got an idea (not to far back) to strike through what I wrote and add new.  Those words are words I earned and I don't want to loose them.  The word counter still counts them, but I don't need to keep them later on.  As a matter of fact, I haven't gone back to read the last 2 days writing.  I'm sure it is terrible, but it's a base for me.  I'll read it all in December.  I'm sure some of it will be just like new to me by then!!

I have been blessed to have supportive family and friends on this adventure.  On Monday morning I had text messages from both a great friend and my mother-in-law cheering me on and encouraging me on the Nano kick off!!  My husband has put the kids to bed two nights in a row, closed the door to the computer room, and brought me drinks while I typed away.  I also have several friends who are writing with me this year, one of whom decided on October 31 to write and had no clue what she story she wanted to tell (check out the word war bar on the side of this blog!).  This is the year we WIN!!

Oh!  One more note:  Nano changed the stats page that I complained about in the last blog posting.  It did say that the day was an "unsuccessful day" unless you had typed 1667 words that day.  I thought that was very negative, and apparently so did a lot of other people.  I saw a forum topic on it with a lot of unhappy wrimo's.  Now it says that you are "behind schedule".  Still not ideal to me, but heaps better than "unsuccessful".

Happy writing!!!

Knife in the BACK!!!

WOW!!!  I just logged into my Nano site and checked out the stats page.  I've written a quick 100+ words just so I can say that I've started.  The stats page is a knife in the back!!  Holy moses!!  I'm sure it's meant to be motivating, but it is already calling today "unsuccessful" because I haven't logged in 1667 words!!  The day isn't even half over. 

Well, I guess I have to be the optimist here and say that it is motivating and I just need to log those words in (or more) to get the counter to tell me I am ahead of schedule and that today is a "success". 

Jeese Nano!!  I'm sure there is a more positive way to portray that!  It's the first day for crying out loud.  :)

It's November!!

It's November!!  I was tempted to stay up late last night and begin typing.  But I resisted.  Partially because my sugar buzz wore off (thank you Halloween candy!), and partly because I know I have a TON of work to do (at work and at home) and I wanted to be rested to be able to accomplish everything I need to this week, including 1667 words a day.  And still I had to drag myself and my kids out of bed.  I look forward to the time change next week so I get some light back in my life... Oh wait, "fall BACK", it's going to be dark LONGER....  <>

In other news... I have another supporter!!  In fact a dear dear friend decided (without me even prompting her!!) to join in the Nano crazies at the last minute.  I haven't had the chance to chat about it with her at all.  I just got a message from her that she signed up and needs support!!  I CAN DO THAT!!  I'm good at supporting roles.  I'm just anxious about my lead in this years writing marathon (fun run?).  I have added her to the wordwar widget <-----  That should be motivating!!

Happy writing!