The National Novel Writing Month starts tonight at midnight. Fifty thousand words, thirty days. I’ll be toting my laptop along on a trip to Washington DC, and hope to be able to make good use of time spent in airport terminals. My main priority for being in the nation’s capitol on election day is simple: don’t get arrested. Whatever happens on Tuesday or Wednesday, I need to not put myself in a position to get arrested. Secondary priority: don’t get physically beaten by anybody of any persuasion. Tertiary priority: have a great time with my wife away from the kid. That leaves the NaNoWriMo at an unfortunate quarternary priority.

This year I’m hoping to more aggressively embrace the format of the challenge. I don’t want to unduly limit myself with self-editing, pressing myself to write the story in the order in which it would be read. This time there will be some skipping around, maybe some derailing, and some character exposition that won’t necessarily fit where I’m putting it as I’m writing it. One of the big tips that past winners give is to not edit yourself as you go along; you can fix the typos and the poorly-crafted sentences later, in December, maybe January.

Looks like Chunkbot, Daniel, and Jase are all participating this year. Break a keyboard, boys!