Halloween, or The Nanowrimo Countdown Beginneth.

Halloween, a day to celebrate a wide variety of events - everything from religious celebrations to scoring the biggest, most awesome bad of candy. For "Nanos" - aspiring writers participating in National Novel Writing Month - Halloween is also the final countdown to the beginning of their thirty day trek into the most intense writing of the year.

While I am participating in Nanowrimo, I have decided to take a slightly different approach: learning to explore the different facets of writing every day. Unfortunately, my day life prevents me from spending several hours an evening sitting in front of a blank screen and letting the words fall from my fingertips, so what better way to improve my writing skills than using this opportunity to study style, tagging, and showing versus telling. All three are areas where I could improve.

In addition to writing a set number of words every day - I intend to writing snippets and scenes, mostly - I will be reading quite a bit. At the moment, I am working through On Writing by Stephen King, a must-read, and have ordered Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon - both of which writing friends recommended to me. I hope to gain some insight into the craft of writing.

So to all of those diving into whatever novel, word count, and practice in a few hours, happy writing! And a Happy Halloween to all!