Every year, when November rolls around, I tell myself that I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel (~175 pages) in the 30 days of November.  From the About page:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Every year, I sign up for NaNoWriMo.  My old buddy Michael Garcia has participated — and completed — NaNoWriMo at least three times, as of 2007.  If he can do it, so can I, right?  Granted, Michael is a prolific writer, a self-described “aspiring novelist”.  I am not. Still…

Every other year, I actually write for exactly one day out of the month.  Last year, for instance, I churned out a whopping 1067 words on November 1st.  I was returning home from a business trip in Germany, and I assumed that being trapped on an airplane for the better part of a day would give me an opportunity to let the words flow.

Today, I read over what I wrote last year, and I still think it’s funny stuff.  It’s a good scene.  Unfortunately, that’s all it is, one good scene.  There isn’t any more to the story than that one scene.  Certainly not enough to set the stage for a novel.  Heck, it’s not enough for a decent short story.

Someday, the words and ideas within me will flow into a coherent story, be it a novel or a collection of short stories.  NaNoWriMo 2010 will not be the year it happens.

I’d be content to keep THIS blog filled with content.