“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’m not usually one for sports. In any form. I don’t play sports, I don’t watch sports, my only exceptions being Olympic diving and gymnastics, and Winter Olympics. But that’s only every other year, which is plenty enough for me. But to say that I actually got excited and was yelling at this dodgeball tournament is saying something.

Dodgeball is a smaller sport in collegiate levels,  not many universities have them, but mine does, and we hosted the Dodgeball National Championship Tournament the other week. It sounded like it would be something fun to shoot so I took my camera and went to the game. I stayed through the semi-finals on the last day and let’s just say, my university dominated the whole time and went on to win. The best game was where another Michigan team had our side pegged down to one guy, but he kept catching balls that allows another player onto the court, and we turned the game around and still beat the other team. I don’t think I got as many pictures for that game because I was too busy yelling. And I think I’ve added dodgeball to my list of exceptions that I’ll watch.

Here is my flickr set of the best photos from the games. Click through to see more.

The other shoot I did that weekend was some behind the set stuff for my friend Mike. He has been filming his new student run TV show, Jeff & Mike Write A Comic and asked me for some photos. I have to say, his show looks hilarious and it was great fun being on the set in my friends’ apartment. I’m really looking forward to when the show actually comes out. But until then, enjoy these behind the scenes shots of the filming. Click through the image for more.