NaNoWriMo is in full swing…

…and I’m on the verge of full panic mode.  Well, not quite.  I tend to like to wait until my toes are dangling over the edge before I start to panic.  But I’m preparing to panic.  Give me another few days.

October turned out to be rather fruitful.  I didn’t make all of my goals, but I ended up doing good work, which ultimately was the goal.  So for that, I’m happy.  Much, much better word count than the few months previous.  And I’ve got a few more stories in the works that I’ve put on hold in favor of NaNoWriMo.  So those will get restarted in December.

My project for NaNoWriMo is an idea I got from something Neil Gaiman said a long time ago in his blog after a trip to Venice, Italy:  “I suspect that Venice is full of ghosts.  Not of Venetians, but of all the visitors who came, and fell in love with the place, and promised themselves they’d be back, dead or alive.”

The thought sparked an idea I thought would make a fun short story, so I did a bit of brainstorming on it last fall.  Well, the more I thought about it, the more the characters clamored for a larger stage.  I finally gave in.  “A novel it is,” I told them, “but don’t disappoint me.  I don’t want any wandering about.”  They agreed, but we’ll see.  Right now, they are on their best behavior.  But seeing how they’re set loose in Venice, a little money in their pockets, who knows?  They’re already steering me down different streets, completely ignoring the itinerary.  But it’s wonderful traveling with them nonetheless.

As it stands, I’ve got a quite a bit of research ahead of me.  I’m trying to write around those bits; I can fill in certain things later.  The goal is to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month.  I’m trying to keep my eye on the brass ring.  I’m loving the story idea though.  I sincerely hope I can translate how I see it in my brain to the page intact.  I want to do the story justice.  As far as genre goes, the best way I can describe it is “the extraordinary happening to the ordinary.”  I love that kind of story.

Speaking of which, I’m completely in love with the new television series “Life on Mars.”  Love, love, love this show.  This is the kind of stuff I dig, and I’m not much of a media worshipper seeing as how I’ve gone most of my adult life without television.  Anyway, the show has two thumbs up from me.  Check it out.

Anyway, I’m off to see what my characters are up to.  Carnevale in Venezia has commenced, the Costumi are out in their glittery droves, and I’m anxious to see what happens.  I will start posting word counts (as soon as they aren’t shameful <g>), and will do my best to post progress notes…just so people know I’m not goofing off.

Good luck to all of my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers.  May the word count be with you!