NaNoWriMo 2010 wrap-up

A funny thing happened at the end of nanowrimo 2009 — we didn't stop writing.

Oh, we relaxed over the holidays, and we didn't have that word-count deadline to push for. But two of us were finishing or editing our novels and decided to meet weekly. And two more joined us to work on short stories and writing projects. We met all year in the local Barnes & Noble cafe, and by July, we were psyched for another nanowrimo!

Wrimos at the High Point Library

That excitement carried over into the most active nanowrimo group our region's ever had. In addition to our B&N write-ins, Aislynn and Elizabeth planned Monday night writes at the High Point Library (whilst some Greensboro folks met simultaneously at Panera Bread), Darren planned Sunday write-ins at our traditional nanowrimo coffee dives in G'boro, and I planned (with lots of help) a local Night of Writing Dangerously at the Archdale Library. We had 11 writers typing away at that event, buoyed by pizza, chocolate, coffee, door prizes and wi-fi. We even had a used book sale to browse through during breaks.

Most of us met the "Tentacle challenge" by using tentacles somewhere in our stories!

photo and tentacles by Don Morgan

Since I've been working on the novel about my ancestors for at least two nanowrimos, I took a break this year and wrote a memoir about "my year in a foreign country in the middle of North Carolina." I finished my draft of Siler City Blues with 56,224 words.

Most of it looks awful and boring, but at about 25K words I think I may have written some good stuff. I'll look at it later.

For now, after a four-month break and a lot of nanowrimo inspiration, I'm ready to get back to my novel.