A warning

November is a busy month. It also happens to be my favourite month: my birthday and my wife's birthday are both in November; and although we sometimes see snow in October, November is the month that we're guaranteed to see some up in the mountains. What makes November a little more interesting/busy this year is that I have two challenges to complete: NaNoWriMo and Movember.

NaNoWriMo stands for: National Novel Writing Month, although it goes far beyond a single nation these days. During NaNoWriMo - which lasts the entire month of November - each participant is expected to write a 50,000 word novel. As you probably know writing is hard, but for many of us deadlines and encouragement are great motivators. NaNoWriMo was created with those two facts in mind; the community has been steadily growing since its inception in 1999 with the original 21 pariticpants, to last year's nearly 120,000 writers. Of course, not everyone makes it to the 50,000 words - last year there were nearly 22,000 'winners'. I'm happy to say that I was one of them.

Last year I jumped right in to NaNoWriMo without really putting a plan in place before hand. I wouldn't necessarily say that that was a mistake, but it definitely made writing a little more difficult. There were some serious plot pitfalls along the way that could have been avoided with an outline. This year, I've already put some thought into my forthcoming novel, but I haven't managed to find all the time I hoped to create a full outline. Looks like I'll be winging it to some degree this time around too. Perhaps I'll spend time doing a bit more research and outline writing tomorrow, rather than jumping straight into writing.

Movember, my second challenge of the month, is a fundraising event to support research into the cure and treatment of prostate cancer. Like most fundraising events, the fundraisers must do something symbollic (run a marathon, give up a favourite pass-time, etc.) to encourage people to donate to the cause. In this case, I have to grow a moustache - and only a moustache! No beards permitted. Now, I've not been clean shaven in somewhere approaching seven years; I've worn a beard all that time, so this is kind of a big deal. I suspect that my poor skin is going to suffer somewhat over the first couple of days while it gets used to the feel of a razor on a daily basis again.

So why is this post a warning? With my two month-long challenges, I fear that I might continue to slip further behind on the blog writing side of things. So, to keep this site active for the month of NaNoWriMovember, I promise to post moustache progress images on a daily basis. That way, even if I can't find the time to write, there will at least be some new content every day.

Wish me luck. :)