It’s about time, but now I’m blogging about why November is a crazy month. It’s NaNoWriMo time, that’s why. I’ve got a little widget to show everyone how I’m doing (down on the right), and so on.

Why am I participating in this lunacy? Well, the timing was right. I had just finished taking all the notes from my research, plotted out the story, written all the character profiles, and I had some ideas on settings. Next to come was what I call the Rough Sketch, where I just write down all I can think of and still stay within the plot outline. Others would call it the Discovery Draft, or even First Draft, but I like the metaphor of drawing a sketch, where you have all kinds of lines that don’t end up in the final drawing.

So far, I think I’m doing good. I’ve discovered a steady, daily pace is the way to do it. (The tortoise wins the race every time!) And it freaks me out when I have to miss a day (I think I’ve only missed one) or when there aren’t enough words in the day.

The other fun thing I’m pursuing is working on a trailer for the first book. I’ve seen what some other authors have done, and I think, I can do that. With the experience I’ve had with video editing, and other graphic arts stuff, I should be able to do a bang-up job of a trailer. And I think the last screen should read: “Would you buy this book?” If I get enough people interested, that may help when I’m talking to agents, etc., about marketing the books.

Sometimes this whole process seems to take forever. Writing a book takes a long time (at least, for me, at this particular point in time), and finding an agent takes a long time, and I’ve heard that waiting for the book to come out takes a long time.

But, as Solomon tells us: “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.” Ecc. 7:8. Another item to add to my “improvement” list.