“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.” ~What Is NaNoWriMo?

So, I love NaNoWriMo. This is my 5th year participating in the madness. I began my sophomore year of high school when a friend told me about it over the summer. I idly blew it off. But then when she started getting excited for October to start when the NaNo forums open, I decided to check it out and I was hooked. I stayed up late that night, refreshing the NaNoWriMo home page on October 1st, 2005, the first available day for new sign-ups to start that year. And every October and November since have been filled with novel writing goodness.

The first two years I completed NaNo with two sci-fi novels in a series. The third year, I tried to continue the series, but I think they ran out of steam, and I was also swamped by my senior year of high school and college applications, etc. Similar story with my freshman year of college. I was simply too busy with the new load of homework and social life I was unused to. But this year I have more free time, a lighter class load, and my own apartment to escape and write in. I’m determined to finish this year with a new slightly sci-fi/adventure novel. Catch my synopsis under Novel Info on my NaNo Profile.

This year I started my free trial of Scrivener for Macs (which is recommended for large research papers and writing projects, even if you’re not doing NaNoWriMo). And there’s a special offer in the forums that gives you 50% off the purchase price if you win and would like to buy it after NaNo! Definitely a great motivator for me this year, because I love this program already and I’ve had it a week. Also, there is an offer from CreateSpace to give you one free printed proof of your book if you reach 50k. That’s right, you can hold a copy of your book, for FREE! I’m definitely doing that as well. (Keep in mind, these offers are only for registered NaNo users who reach 50k and validate it on the website.)

This year I donated $25 to The Office of Letters and Light that runs NaNoWriMo! $5 for every year I have participated. And if you’re a NaNo Participant on Twitter, be sure to add this Twibbon to your avatar! Made by me!!

I might be gone for a while, which hopefully won’t be noticable. But my silly laptop ate a feather from my comforter and the fan grinds now on occasion. So, I’ve got about a month left on my free one-year warranty, so I thought I’d take it in and get it looked over for free while I can.

Meanwhile, I’ll be desperately clinging to my iPod touch for Tweetie, e-mail, and music. So I’ll still be quite available via Twitter, but a little quiet everywhere else. Tootles for now!

Update: Just kidding. I’m still here for a few more days. They don’t think anything is wrong. *annoyed* Ordering new fan replacements, just in case. *sigh*

So, I’ve done something I promised myself I wouldn’t do this year, and I’ve done it twice. I’ve become an officer of two student organizations. Before you say, “Oh, but that’s such a good thing to be a part of!” let me tell you that I agree. But I have something to explain.

In high school, I was Secretary for two organizations, a grant giving committee my sophomore year and my school’s chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) which I helped to start my junior year. Let me tell you, that it sucks to be the “responsible kid” and be voted Secretary which means you’re stuck taking lots of boring notes. This is even more of a pain when you don’t even take notes in your classes as it is, but people always assumed I was the “smart kid.” FALSE! I hated taking notes and I had been slacking off in my classes since middle school and was a solid A/B student. And I was the furthest person possibly interested in taking notes.

Whatever! Point is, I’m a decent person, and I did it anyways, and I did my job well. So well, that my senior year, both organizations had voted me President. With a busy senior year schedule of both high school and college classes, and meetings sometimes at the same time (not by my choice) I would often have to end up choosing which meeting was more important for me to attend. This meant a lot of pressure.

Long story short, my freshman year of college (a busy one by most standards) I promised myself I wouldn’t get too involved in student organizations so I would have more time to relax, de-stress, do homework, etc. Well, I joined Apples & Oranges, the university’s Mac user group and I became one of the regular members (cuz I’m an awesome dork like that) and they needed a Vice-President ASAP for some requirements, so BAM! I’m a VP. Which was okay because I honestly don’t do anything.

But, I made it worse by deciding one night where I was obviously light on homework, that my university of 20,000+ students really needed a Photography Club! You’d think that a university of this size that they would have a photography club already! I mean, there’s a Harry Potter Club and a Knitting Club but not Photography Club??? So I started one. Yes, me. Which means my freshman year, I’m running around from building to building, playing e-mail tag trying to reserve a classroom, messaging masses of potential members, trying to get this club up and running and make it interesting so members will want to come and stay.

Yes, student organizations are a great thing to be involved in, but I promised myself not to join too many. I went out and did worse than opposite of that and started a brand new organization which means 10x more responsibility than joining too many in order to preserve my sanity. So, why did I do this? 1- because I’m awesome, duh. 2- because I know that it will be so worth it later.