My latest blog entry discusses the importance of thinking like an editor when submitting manuscripts.

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I can't seem to focus on nanowrimo this year. It's not that the story doesn't interest me, because it does. It's also important in that it continues the saga I began with my first novel. I want to end up with something publishable down the road.

Unfortunately for this novel, my mind continues to focus on this year's election, and how I did nothing aside from cast my vote on November 4.

I was afraid to voice my opinion because of the potential passionate disagreements. I despise confrontation.

In the end, though, I felt I shirked my responsibility as an American citizen for remaining silent.

Some would say voting is all I need to do. I don't disagree, but in a country where the average citizen has many a venue to voice his or her opinions, I should avail myself of them.

A few days ago I created a new journal that will focus on the politics and news of the day. You can find it at almarquardt.wordpress.com. To increase readership, I'm copying the same entries on my Myspace page at www.myspace.com/pbthththth. 

My nanowrimo word count continues to eke up, so I haven't given up. I've written 4724 words so far. That's less than 500 words a day, but if I continue writing the same amount, I'll end up between 14,000-15,000 words by December 1. That's a pretty good start of a novel, methinks.

After that, I'll likely set it aside for awhile. I need to edit my first novel one more time before Feburary 19 when I attend the Christian Writers Guild "Writing for The Soul" conference in Colorado Springs. I hope to attract an agent or publisher with it, so it needs to be pristine by then. It's close as is, but with writing my novella, I decided I need to make a few more modifications. That includes adding slang I termed as Fringe, and a few more technological gizmos. The changes will make my 'universe' richer and even more believable.

Happy Halloween!

Okay, with that out of the way, anyone planning on participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starting tomorrow?

I will, and this will be my fourth year. The first two I managed to squeak out the required 50,000 words, but last year I managed only 12,000.

While some people plan ahead with outlines and character sketches, I begin with a general idea and two to three characters. After that, I let my fingers do the typing.

The nice thing about nanowrimo is it encourages people to write -- not well to be sure, but to write. In order to make the 50k, a person needs to type an average of 1667 words a day. That's not bad when you think about it. For most people that takes less than an hour.

Finding an hour can sometimes be the hardest part.

That and getting stuck on the story.

My difficulties last year stemmed from being pregnant and not having the mental energy to continue. Plus the story I chose to pursue didn't excite me and ended up going nowhere. For that one, I should have wrote an outline first.

I'm again flying by the seat of my pants, so hopefully it'll work out this time.

How about you? Are you giving it a try? If so, you can find my portfolio here

Have a safe Halloween, and don't eat too much candy.