Being well ahead of the game with three more write-ins scheduled for the remainder of the week and knowing that with the kids off from school, I wouldn’t get much writing done anyway, I took yesterday “off.”  I even spent some time on the novel in progress that I had set aside to take part in this year’s NaNoWriMo.  No, I didn’t write.  The kids and I drove up into the mountains and took some snapshots of the colorful array of leaves (not as rich as I would have liked seeing that I apparently missed the window and the drought made it less than breathtaking.)  I’m hoping to use some of the snapshots for the cover of “Olly, Olly Oxen Free” the working title of the book. 

My nature quest didn’t stop there.  I went spelunking today.  Virtual spelunking, that is.  Apparently not all caves are alike, or so Mira Beck, the protagonist of my current NaNo novel, has learned.  And so she had to take me along to a few good sites where I could learn more about some caves.  The Oregon Caves to be specific.  It was definitely not something I could just make up, but it was well worth the trip and something I look forward to actually doing next summer when the caves open again. 

Which brings me to a point for novice NaNo’ers.  While it’s helpful to know what you’re talking about as you write your novel, be careful how much time you take doing such.  Get down the points that are pertinent to the story, know that you are writing fiction so you can always make up a place, thing or person and fudge a little bit.  You can flesh it out later (make it your mantra, there’s always NaNoEditMo in the spring to work on editing your novel.)  It’s easy to get caught up in the more finite parts of the novel so you have to be firm with yourself and set limits.  Say you have two hours to write and are getting stuck, spend 15 minutes max doing some surfing and then move on whether or not you have what you were looking for.  You simply have to keep plugging away and moving toward the goal of 50K words (you might even find that you’re not finished with your novel by 50K and that’s okay, too!). 

After tonight’s write-in, I’m up to 28,326 transcribed words and estimate I have about 34,866 words written longhand.  Not too shabby, although I know there have been others that have already reached the goal (what a shock that was to learn!)

Write on!