It’s that time of year — when it’s cool to be a witch (or demon, or ghoul, or vampire, or whatever other-worldly critter rocks your world). It’s also less than 24 hours to NaNoWriMo…

I’m all set! I have notes prepared for almost all of the cameo appearances, names chosen for my 3 main characters, and 14 chapter outlines — which is somewhere around half of what I expect my novel will wind up with, although I still don’t know how it ends. Theoretically I’ll be figuring that out over the next 30 days — or perhaps I’ll hit a 50K wordcount long before the end of the story, and need to participate in NaNoFiMo. (I rather suspect that will be the case, so I’ve already registered at NaNoFiMo.)

My front room will be dark this evening, as I don’t want to deal with trick-or-treaters and so will pretend not to be home. By the time I leave for the Midnight Write, the little candy beggars should have stopped ringing my doorbell long since. Anxiety is spending the night at her friend’s house, since there’s no school on Wednesday, and they’re planning to go begging for candy and stay up late eating it. (If you couldn’t tell, I’m about as fond of trick-or-treating as a cat is of water — and I always have been. I don’t actually remember doing it as a child, although I suppose I must have at some point.)

Some of my novel’s characters are chomping at the bit to get out onto paper (or computer file, as the case may be!), while others are just totally laid-back and biding their time. I’m sure I’ll be spending lots of time at websites such as Behind the Name, finding the right names for these largely as-yet-unnamed characters. I mean, really — who ever thinks about what a good name for a stables-master would be?

And I’m amused by the new set of NaNoWriMo widgets…who wants to start a word(count) war with me? (Another question I’ve never asked myself: what area would be good to have a region wordcount war with? I’m betting Portlanders can kick most other regions’ asses!)

If talk of NaNoWriMo totally bores you, check back with me in December — I might be back to normal then. Or whatever passes for normal, anyway!