A quick word about the 1st 3 days

November 2011 is here!  In our Church this month, we remember the souls of the faithful departed and prepare for the upcoming changes to the Roman Missal.  In our country this month, we focus on thankfulness.  In my house this month, we write!  

We are on day 3 of the crazy novel writing endeavor my children and I have undertaken as part of NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month).  The goal is to write an entire novel in one month’s time.  The kids and I have been counting down to this month since late August.  We had originally planned to stay up and start right at midnight on October 31st, figuring the candy from trick or treating and the excitement of finally being able to start would energize us.  We scrapped that plan early on in the day on Monday.  I could tell that no amount of Halloween candy was going to sustain me through an all-night writing session so we went to bed about 9:30.  I did not sleep well, so at 6:20 the next morning I got up and snuck out to the computer to start.  The first two sentences had been written in my mind for weeks and I just had to get them down on “paper”.  Of course, from there I really did not know where I would go but the words have been flowing pretty well since.

            The kids and I are taking turns in front of the computer.  Most of our conversations become discussions of word counts and last minute character additions.  My 6 year old, feeling left out, has decided he will write a novel in December.  He now joins in when we talk about plot twists and turns.   I asked my 10 year old son this afternoon if he felt like he was only half here because his brain was focused half on his novel every minute of the day.  His answer?  “¾ of my brain is in my novel!” That pretty much sums up how our first three days have gone.

So far, it really is as much fun as we’d hoped but I keep warning the kids at some point it might start feeling more like work.  Still, we are committed to seeing this through and are here to support each other.  Now, I have more writing to get to and the 406 words here are doing nothing to get me closer to my 50,000 word goal…..