Hudson River bike path, Fall 2014

You may have noticed the new widgets in the right-hand sidebar. They’ve appeared there every fall since I started this blog. You can almost set your calendar by them.

Each spring, as I struggle with revisions on a current work-in-progress and add one or two more letters to my virtual Wall of Denial, I consider not doing NaNoWriMo in the fall. Then October comes. NaNo’s cheerleaders send me encouraging emails. The ether starts buzzing with discussions of pantsing vs. planning. Nights, with their invitation for mugs of tea sipped in front of a screen blazing with ideas, lengthen. I look at my calendar and see that November doesn’t have much else going on. And I decide to give it another go.

There’s something about starting and finishing a draft in one month that appeals to me. Character development, plotting, world-building: each is like a game whose rules I make up as I go along, and the only way to lose the game is to quit.

That’s my kind of game.

So, watch this space for infrequent updates. And hey, why not join me? Go to NaNo’s website to learn more.