Shortly after midnight, not long into November, I began writing.  NaNoWriMo has begun!  As it was already late and I was tired, I only wrote 120 words and then turned in for the night.  At least I got it started.

I had very vague ideas for a story, so when I started writing it was a surprise to me just what might come together, particularly when it is hard to write when you haven’t much to say.  My beginning is sort of strange, but that doesn’t bother me.  I think it is something that is going to be explained somewhere later in the story.  Now two main characters are shaping up and more ideas are unfolding in my mind as I go.  There is already a mystery person and my main characters are about to introduce someone else into the mesh.

I’ve read what others have had to say about their experience with NaNoWriMo, and many complain of ‘hitting a wall’ after so many thousand words, or after the first two or three weeks of writing.  That is on my mind, and since this is only day one of the 30 day challenge, I somehow have to dismiss that thought.  What I don’t need is a barrier in my way from the very beginning, a negative expectation that will put up a block so that I cannot complete this novel challenge.

Well, to add to all this, I learned of another challenge that started today.  It is called PiBoIdMo, which stands for Picture Book Idea Month.  The challenge is to come up with 30 picture book ideas in 30 days! You don’t have to write full manuscripts for them, you just write something down for in a picture book. It could be a story plot, a character name, a title for your story.  Today I thought of an idea – the name of the main character which will likely be the title too, and I made a few notes for the storyline. There is no great pressure for this challenge, which is nice since I am doing NaNoWriMo at the same time.   This one is more delightful.

Then I discovered there are great prizes that can be won for PiBoIdMo, but for me just getting down 30 ideas that I can use in a picture book is the reward to myself.  Don’t get me wrong .. winning a signed book or having an author critique my story would be fantastic!  But, I’m doing this for the inspiration that is already being generated.  Woo Hoo!   🙂

So, I’m going to stop writing here and move back to my NaN o writing.  Later tonight I will publish my final word count for today, day one.  (It is currently over 1000.)  And if I can get a word count widget for here from NaNo, then that will make it even easier to keep you posted on my progress.  I’m not very good at moving and installing widgets, but I’ll try.  🙂

So, what are you doing to challenge yourself?  If you are a writer do you have any goals you are working toward right now?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂