How I Plan To Spend #NaNoWriMo 2014

With October coming to a close that can mean only one thing to writers: we're on the doorstep to National Novel Writing Month (affectionately known as NaNoWriMo).

I won't spend a lot of time describing the event that takes place throughout the month of November except to say, for those unaware, that the 30 day challenge is meant to encourage writers to put down as many words as they can (about 1,666 words per day to meet the assigned goal) - hopefully ending with at least 50,000 words toward the first draft of a novel.

Now every year I have the intention of participating in NaNoWriMo, but for the last few years at this time I've been in different stages of editing a novel I've already written earlier in the year. I suppose I shouldn't beat myself up too much considering I've already checked off the most important, and arguably hardest step - writing the first draft. Unfortunately I'm not the type of writer who can bench a big project for a whole month and start a new one from scratch (I do envy those that can) so I plan to spend the 30 days of November finishing the latest draft of the next novel that should be out roughly a year from now.

(And because I'm pretty comfortable with the current status of the next novel, I thought I'd share a little bit about it.)

Currently titled PICTURES, the next book tells the story of a widowed former artist who begins to see unusual changes in his life after meeting a mysterious woman.

The idea that sparked the novel is one I've had for a long time (one of the first I ever documented in my "idea journal"), and the decision to make it the next book came about a year ago when my wife and I were on a flight to Aruba. During the four-hour plane ride my wife devoured a pretty lengthy novel (David Baldacci's ONE SUMMER). I've never read the book but did check out a summary. My wife is drawn to the family drama/romance novels akin to authors like Baldacci and, one of her favorites, Jodi Picoult. Seeing how quickly she got through the book, I wanted to try my hand at telling such a story.

While it could be argued that SEEING is very much a family drama, I associate SEEING more with a coming-of-age tale, considering the progress of, and the lessons learned by, the young protagonist Jake Sheppard. PICTURES, my first "adult-themed" book, will very much play out in the family drama realm, with a bit more of the love story element at play.

Of course, right now, I'm still in the throes of editing (killing darlings), so it's impossible to predict just what categories PICTURES will fall into until it is finished.

I can also say that when I write, I write about things that terrify me. When writing PICTURES I tackled the subject of becoming - or perhaps never becoming - a dad.

Stay tuned.

And to all you writers preparing for NaNoWriMo -

Good luck!