NaNoWriMo – T minus 20 days

I've spent October thinking I wouldn't have anything to write beyond one cool concept.  The novel is competing for brain real-estate with 30 self defense techniques and 11 kata that I need to have pattern-perfect for my third degree brown belt test in Chinese Kenpo.  I'm hoping I can test before the end of the year.  Brown belt is a big test, the first one where I'm not allowed to have friends and family with me, the first advanced level belt.

But one lunchtime session with a notebook and headphones and my plot is coming together nicely.  The next step is putting the structure on index cards and into Scrivener, and finding some reference photos.  A trick I got from the husband is getting actor's pictures who would play the character in the movie of the book.

My NaNoWriMo donor halo is in place, and as of yesterday, NaNoWriMo had raised almost 18% of what they need for the year.  It costs a lot to get server hosting for a global event with 300,000 writers, and code a new site free from the Drupal horrors of 2010.  The St Louis regional stats page includes our donations and word count year on year from 2008 onwards, one of my jobs during November is to keep it updated.

The NaNoWriMo playlist for the year is loading up, one essential song for the St Louis region is "Paradise of Love" by DJ Sammy, on the Heaven album.  When you hear the song it sounds like someone sings "Pterodactyl of Lurve" instead of the real lyrics, and the Pterodactyl of Love made it into several novels last year.  Another novelling mascot is the Travelling Shovel of Death.  It will be at the St Louis kick off, and all the write-ins I attend, to encourage and inspire the troops.