It’s that time again! NaNoWriMo 2007 has begun and I’m already over 5000 words into my next novel.

This one is temporarily called Sweet, Sweet Kisses - but that’s only a working title, because I have a problem being able to write without a title. If it’s Untitled, I can’t get any words out, it’s weird.

Anyway - if you want to keep track of my progress you can take a view at my profile on NaNoWriMo. You’ll find an excerpt from the novel and the current word count…as soon as they enable the tracking badges I’ll put one on my website so you can just look at the image to track progress.

Cheers, and happy writing to everyone participating!

On October 1, nanowrimo.org opens up for registration! If you aren’t familiar, it’s the National Novel Writing Month (for the month of November), and it’s nearly here!

If you’ve been thinking about writing, now is the time to start preparations. Don’t start your novel of course, you have to wait until November 1 for that, but if you need to do some outlining and perhaps come up with a title, you’ve got a little over a month to do it.

Rachelle and I will br once again participating in this fun, yet very challenging event (50k words in 30 days or less). I decided today that I will be doing a sequel to a book I wrote during the last NaNoWriMo, as my first novel during November. I say first, because I will likely write more than one story during the 30 month period.

You might recall that last year I finished my first novel in 12 days, then started the second one. I’m not trying to break a record or anything, but it’s likely that I will get through more than one story during the month.

My problem is that I now have 5 novels in varying states of progress, one of which I started on my writing retreat in Oregon back in April. I really need a year off (with pay) so I can spend every day writing and editing and getting these things ready for publication. Either that, or a publisher picks me up and let’s me send them a draft and they start the editing process for me.

My big desire/goal/hope/wish is that I’ll be able to sell the movie rights to Box of Hair, a fairy tale, and make enough money that I can start writing full time, churning out book after book for the rest of my life. If you know any publishers, send them my way :-).

Until then - I’ll see you all at NaNoWriMo! Here’s a link to my profile there, so you can track progress of my next novel starting on November 1.

Tonight, 24 November 2006, I finished my second novel as part of the National Novel Writing Month. Still, I have 6 more days before the end of the competition, so perhaps I should start yet another one?

I think that might be pushing my luck, so I’m going to give myself a day to rest, and then I’m going to start the editing process. There are parts of both stories that I know I want to elaborate on, and possibly change. Either way, I’m sure my word count is going to be increasing…might as well get as many more words in before the end of the month as I can.

The fairy tale turned out to be a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, or what the climax of the story would be, but as I’ve heard from others, eventually your story just takes on a life of its own. And that’s what this one did. I had no idea how it was going to wrap up, but then it suddenly did. I was amazed myself when I realized what was going on.

I think I want to keep this momentum going. I’m enjoying diving into a completely fictional world, escaping from the realities around me now and then. If I can hammer out two, or even one novel a month, I might actually be able to make something of this hobby. That is, if anyone actually likes the stories :-).

I suppose it remains to be seen whether this is a new career option for me, or whether it will simply remain a hobby.

I would like to give a brief shout-out to Don Teeter, who helped me realized, mere moments ago, that the title of my new novel, which I have recently begun after finishing the first one well ahead of schedule, will be “Box of Hair, a Fairy Tale“.

I can’t express how pleased I am right now. I was really upset with myself, not knowing what the title of this new story would be, because on my first one, that’s the first thing I realized. It was something that I was able to latch on to, and it carried me all the way to 50k words in just 12 days.

As I began my new story, which is indeed a fairy tale, complete with “once upon a time” and “they all lived happily ever after“, I felt directionless. I was writing, but I was writing without purpose. I was writing because it was the right thing to do since I had 18 more days of NaNoWriMo to go!

But now, I have purpose. Thanks Don

Yesterday, 12 November 2006, after 12 days of creating and writing, I have completed by novel for the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org). I guess I should mention, that’s 18 days ahead of schedule.

I wasn’t intending to rush to the finish line and show off, I just happen to write very, very quickly. I’m the first person in Sacramento to finish, but not at all one of the first people overall. I posted a note to one of the forums at NaNoWriMo, and discovered that numerous people had finished their first, and were well into their second, or even their THIRD novels. Apparently, I don’t write as fast as I thought I did!

So I’m going to start another one! Why not? The competition is still going strong, and if I can hammer out yet another little story, I think I might as well go for it. In fact, I’m really hoping that I can maintain the momentum, and start writing like this all throughout the year!

It’s amazing how de-stressed I feel at the end of a long writing session. I come home from work, and can’t wait to jump into the fantasy world of my novel. It’s a bit of an escape I suppose, but I also think it’s a very healthy one. I don’t play sports, I don’t draw or sculpt. I garden, but in the rainy season that gets put on hold. So instead of playing my fun computer games, I’m channeling my creative energy into characters, plot points, tangents, and a fun, new, and completely unrealistic environment.

It’s madness, but it’s great fun! My little plug here is that if you have ever had the desire to write, NaNoWriMo is a superb way to jumpstart that desire. Whether you complete the challenge (50k words in 30 days), or whether you don’t, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re writing! Genre doesn’t matter. They have numerous standard genre suggestions, if you want some ideas, but the choice is open and the choice is yours.

Create as many characters as you want (I have four main characters, with several peripheral characters that come in and out along the way). Create plot twists, create back stories, throw in insanity whenever you feel like it, just write! In the forums, writers even make dares to each other to keep themselves challenged. Kill off your main character before the end of the story…introduce a flying chicken that crashes through a plate glass window and onto the living room floor…incorporate an alien abduction, but not of a person, but instead the family dog or cat…it’s craziness, but it adds to the excitement of the challenge!

I didn’t take any dares from the forums, because I was having enough fun myself, adding weird plot elements and creating strange situations for my characters. Before long, the characters actually come alive and take on a mind of their own. You suddenly realize that you aren’t writing the story, they are, and you’re just the one entering it into Word. It’s madness! Have I said this before?

Anyway, the first story is done. It’s called “Beurre de potiron de bonbon”, roughly translated as “Sweetie Pumpkin Butter.” Did I mention this is madness? Perhaps you’ll see me published on amazon.com one of these days…

Today, November 1, I have started my novel. You can access my user profile on the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) website, with the link to the left near the top of my blog page.

That site will offer you an exerpt of the novel, and information about my ongoing word count. This morning, the website is absolutely crawling. I was barely able to log in and post an exerpt…hopefully they will get the technology issues fixed ASAP so that the 70k authors can get their novels going and counted.

Rachelle and I will be going to Butch-n-Nellies tonight (1827 I Street) around 6pm or so to really dig into our books…the recommendation is that we should be writing at least 2000 words in the first week, to really kick things off well. That builds motivation, and gets us on track to completing the novel by November 30.

Best wishes to everyone who is competing this year!!!

In case you have no idea why I’m talking about “my novel”, you really should start here.

After that…continue reading.

Rachelle and I spent the day together yesterday (Sunday 22 October), starting our outlines for our novels. We found ourselves at a local coffee place, Butch & Nellies, got our laptops out and plugged in, ordered our soy chai’s, and began work.

Well, I wouldn’t call it work. For the first hour or so we were chatting on Skype with Dawn & June in the UK about their recent trip to Sri Lanka, and having their wedding bands melted down and recreated with some new gold inlay work. We also sent IM’s back and forth to each other (even though we were literally sitting 2 feet from each other) about other people in the coffee shop, or just some silly little random banter:

“Hey Rachelle, what are you up to today.”

“Hey Heath, I’m in a coffee shop with some hot guy right now.”

“Cool. TTYL.”

We’re nuts. Have I mentioned this before?

Anyway, back to my novel. What I really wanted to accomplish on this first “prep” day (because we can’t officially start writing until November 1), was a title, and main characters. Hopefully that would lead me into some basic plot elements, that I could begin working through once November arrives.

I decided that I did not want to have a title in English. I don’t know why, I just didn’t. I wanted it to be in French, even though I don’t speak French. So I loaded up the trusty babelfish, and began translating silly phrases and words, just to see what I could come up with. I tried things like: “This Title is in French”, and “The Crazy Adventures of David and Siobhan“, and “Purple Monkey Dishwasher“. But none of these really spoke to me, or felt right for this novel that I’m about to start.

Suddenly it dawned on me. I should have my working title be the pet name I use for Siobhan! Sweetie Pumpkin Butter. Don’t ask me how this nickname started - I haven’t a clue. for some reason over the years I’ve just started calling her Sweetie Pumpkin Butter. And it stuck.

So the current working title of my novel is: “beurre de potiron de bonbon“. Who knows if that will remain the title once I’m into the book, but it’s a good starting point.

Now on to the main characters. There are two, one male, one female. Their names are Barley, and Meringue. I have started thinking about each of their back stories, and am also trying to come up with some very simple peripheral characters for them to interact with during their adventures. I also have the initial setting for the novel, but I don’t want to share too much at this point.

Stay tuned for exerpts from the book as I begin to write - they will all be posted out to My NaNoWriMo page.