The only question is, am I going to participate this year?

Well, I’m going to give it a shot, but I still can’t be totally sure I’ll be able to make it to 50,000 words and be proud of the 50,000 words I’ve written. Ever since I found out about NaNoWriMo, I’ve been racking my brain, trying to think of something to write about and, while I have a few basic plot points down; I don’t have the story fully outlined the way I want it yet. Some people have told me to just start writing and fill in plot details as I go but I don’t know if that will work for me. I’ve tried that in the past and it’s never worked out well for me.

The main concept I have been kicking around and will likely go with is a spy novel, starring three agents working for a top secret black ops organization within the NSA (which I haven’t named yet…) is codenamed “Silver Bullet” and has absolutely nothing to do with werewolves, despite said codename. I have the first couple of chapters outlined, a few important plot points including the major plot twist that occurs near the end and, of course, the end. I figure that’s enough to go on for now but I keep second guessing myself. There’s a lot of research that I still need to do in order to present something that’s reasonably accurate as government agencies, weaponry, tactics and covert operations aren’t fields I typically study but I’m relatively sure that I know enough about these fields to write something that’s reasonably accurate and believable, at least to the average reader.

I have another concept in mind involving vampires but they seem to be the flavor of the month right now and I want to write about something that’s not so common in…everything these days (I call that the Twilight effect). The only problem with not going with this is the fact that I feel like this concept would be easier to write. I already have most of the story planned out and filling in the plot as I go along wouldn’t be terribly difficult, or at least not as difficult as I perceive my original concept to be.

Now I know the goal of NaNoWriMo isn’t to produce prize winning works of pure literary genius but I don’t want to produce a steaming pile of garbage either. I want something that’s readable and at least mildly interesting. Perhaps this is just me second guessing my ability as a writer but I honestly don’t know if I can deliver that in 30 days, as much as I’d like to, especially now that I’m behind schedule with my outlining. Today is the first of the month and I’m supposed to write the first 1,667 words of my novel today and I haven’t yet done that. Perhaps I can get enough of the outlining done tonight to have a solid idea of where I’m going with this and be comfortable enough to actually start writing. I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out shortly after I’ve concluded this blog post and gone back to my outlining.

If any of you have any tips or suggestions, let me know, I’ll certainly be glad to hear them.