I first attempted NaNoWriMo in 2010. Wow, that’s four years ago! My how time flies. I got a good start on an idea I had over 20 years ago in college and never wrote it down. It is one of those ideas that keeps percolating to the top over the years. However, it was a hectic time, and I did not maintain any regularity in my writing.

I debate this every year, of whether to dig in again. The last three years, November has always seemed to sneak up on me.

This year, I have known it was coming, and I have been more regular in my blogging, mostly on this blog, but some on some other topical blogs.

I also write a lot for work, but it is mostly emails, writing up support calls or logging bugs, and some technical writing for how-tos, knowledge base articles, and help files. Not quite the same as creative writing.

I want to blow the dust off and crank out this novel to get it out of my head. That’s how a lot of my ideas work, or thoughts that burden me. If I write them out, I can let them go.

Of course, I want my great novel to make me rich. Enough to retire my debts so I can have the kind of retirement my Grandad had would be enough. He always had enough and paid his bills and didn’t have to resort to being a Wal-Mart greeter, although he had the kind of personality that he would have excelled at it.

I know some people have used it to write their RPGs and board games. There have even been game design contests to design a game in a set amount of time, some in 24 or 48 hours, others in the course of a month.

I have remembrances of games my brother and our friends made up, but I don’t think I have anything close to rules or even a character that has survived the 30+ years since then. I’m not sure I have any ideas for a “new” game that would gather much interest. I would be better at writing a module, a supplement, or maybe my own maps to an existing game or genre of games.

So, I hem and haw and delay my decision. Just over 1,600 words a day, about four times as many as in this post. That’s not unreachable. I easily crank out posts on this blog over 2,000 words. The idea is to kick start a first draft, which is the hard part. Once that is out there, the editing, honing, and rearranging can begin to get the second draft and something worth sharing with others.

Part of me really wants to do this, part of my flurry of blog posts that I am building up in my buffer tonight is avoiding another creative project. So, I must get the blog post ideas out of my head, so I can focus on the other project.

If I get my other creative project out of the way before Friday, I will do NaNoWriMo 2014. I must focus and persevere!