Sharpen your pencils, break out the paper, and boot up your laptops and desktops. Sketch out those Great American Novels you've been wanting to write but never got around to it. November is National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org , and I invite everyone to make the attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

That works out to about 9 single spaced, typewritten pages at about size 12 Arial font with one-inch margins all around, or 2667 words per day (which gives you 10 words to spare).

I have found it fun to write the novel even if I didn't participate much on the forums. Even so, the forums offer community and opportunities to meet fellow authors to pick their brains for ideas. I have gotten 3 novels out of the 3 years I participated.

I have a couple of novels floating around in my head right now, and I might use one of them for NaNoWriMo. In the meanwhile, I am going to see if I can work out a goal like Inviat did before one of her NaNo attempts and finish up my first novel--that is edit it--before NaNoWriMo begins. I really would like to publish it, or at least start getting pink slips. (I might frame my first one! Nah, just kidding!)

Not having a critique group kind of makes me lose anchor and perspective, but maybe I can forge ahead anyway.

I am not paying $75 per year just to make a meetup to find other authors. There have got to be cheaper ways. I just haven't been trying too hard to think of them or find them.

One thing I'd like to do is start up a critique group for advance copies of books--finished books that haven't been published, yet. Del Rey will send them free to such book groups for such purposes. I think it would be a splendid perspective to find out how published authors do things.

If you live in the Louisville, KY area and are interested in this kind of thing, drop me a message and we'll talk.