November is National Novel Writing Month or as many like to call it: NaNoWriMo. One month to write a 50,000 word novel. Crazy, right?

These “Thirty Days and Nights of Literary Abandon” began in 1999, when 21 dedicated participants attempted to write their November novel. Six completed and were donned the first Winners! By 2011 the numbers had grown beyond anyone’s expectation: 256,618 people participated! I am proud to report that I was among the 36, 843 Winners!

Once again, along with several good writing buddies, and tens of thousands of others all around the globe, on November 1st I  began to write… perhaps not with the same enthusiasm of a newbie, but with equal anticipation about what I will discover along my way.

So far my novel has a title, Blue Pearl,  with a growing cast of characters, two who begin a romance which leads to marriage and a newly acquired Victorian home, a desperate miscarriage ensues and sadly a subsequent affair.

Sounds like a soap opera you say? Well it is life’s struggles that interest me…. Relationships. How we leap forth blindly, and ignite with passion, how we fail, and all the in-between times…

Crafting internal dialogue directs much of my writing. The clicking and ticking of emotion and ideas. The obsessions and hurts.

         Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
         Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
         Raze out the written troubles of the brain
         And with some sweet oblivious antidote            
         Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
         Which weighs upon the heart? (Macbeth).

The way the mind races back through memory: memory that is tucked away yet flies back over and over again like a dark cloud pushed against a mountain range.

Plot is essential too. The movement of story. Not a straight trajectory, but rather a dance, two steps forward and one step back storyline, where emotional triggers and stark reminders affect the characters’ every move.

         There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
         Rough-hew them how we will  (Hamlet).

November is the perfect time for contemplation …  I plan to spend mine writing…!