I've got such extensive plans for NaNoWriMo this year.

If you don't know what NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is, click here!

It's so crazy. I'd heard about it for two or three years, and when some of my friends were doing it last year, I decided to try it at the last second. I actually think the oh-what-the-heck decision happened on November first.

The result? It sucked, and that's probably being way too nice. The idea was half-developed and not planned, and all I did was stress myself out, because everyone else's projects were so lovely.

This year I've decided to re-write a very old project—my first serious prose project, in fact, entitled The Red Smog. The original was started when I was ten or eleven and was finished about six months before I turned thirteen. So, of course, it's horrendous. When discussing the old material with my friend, who has long nursed a soft spot for it, I believe I said something along the lines of, “Ugh! Burn it to shreds! What in the name of my life is my life? What was I thinking?”

Don't believe me? Here's proof: the entire thing was written in... *gulp*... Comic Sans font.

Yeah. I was that stupid.

Anyway! I've always loved the basic story of the piece (even if the writing itself is worse than three-year-old gorilla words) and some of the ideas and spin-off chapters I came up with after The Red Smog's completion were actually okay to look at, so when I was consulting that same friend about ideas for NaNoWriMo earlier this summer, she immediately suggested I use The Red Smog, and I agreed.

It's kind of frustrating that November is so far away! I've never made myself wait to start writing something before. It's always been a take-it-as-it-comes sort of deal. So I keep getting these ideas and random flashes of what I want to happen... and I have to keep squirreling them away! I think I sort of like the outcome though. Since it's a Sci-Fi story, I can draw inspiration from everyday life and just run with it—for example, for the past two says my house has been getting phone calls where the caller ID reads MINNEAPOLIS BUS. This inspired me to mess with the transportation system in the story, so that it would call you and tell you when you had to leave to catch your bus or train based on your location!

In short, making myself wait to start writing this story is giving me more time to think and more material to work with.

I can only imagine where it'll end up.

Anyone else planning on participating in NaNo this year?