What is NaNoWriMo?

Mmkay, so in this post I shall attempt to convey what exactly it is I'm trying to do here.

NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month.

Every November, thousands of people gather together both online and in real life with the goal of writing 50,000 words.  Usually most people fail, so there's not a ton of pressure, but it's a really great awesome accomplishment to have accomplished.  There's even a website, aptly titled nanowrimo.org, where you can sign up, keep track of your word count, and chat with other people on the forums (you can even find awesome people who will make a novel cover for you!).  At the end there are some prizes which are mostly discounts to pretty neat writing programs designed to help people... well, finish a novel.  There is one though that I think is pretty neat, where you can get five two free copies of your novel from CreateSpace.

It is the 50,000 word goal that I'm going to try to reach each month.  Only in November will my novelling count for the prizes, but I'm going to use this year to write... *calculates* 600,000 words.  And seeing as how I'll technically be done next October (and am determined to do NaNoWriMo EVERY year), I'll end up going through the end of next November too.  So that'll be 650,000.

My goodness.

Am I insane?

Don't answer that.

Next month I'll chronicle my prepping for November, but after that?  Heck, I guess I'll be pantsing (where you write a novel with no outline already having been made).

Novel possiblities?

Anti-Hero Superhero Story
Steampunk vs. Cyberpunk (it's complicated, I'll explain later)
Fairytale Re-telling
Undead Urban Fantasy (another explanation coming)
Zombie Apocalypse Journal
X-Men fanfic (it'll be a good quality fanfic, I swear!)
A totally Halloween themed story.  I love Halloween.  Maybe I'll start that one in February.

So yeah, that's seven.  I'm planning on making the Anti-Hero story around 130,000 words long, but I'll probably stretch that out to 150k to go over three months.  I also probably will not do every single idea I listed out.  Shiny novel ideas will happen, and I may be tempted to follow that idea for a month and see where it leads.

I'm also a full-time college student and part time employee at a sandwich shop.  We'll see how this turns out.

I am definitely insane.

(And according to all reports, the below picture is the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland: China)