Where do ideas come from?

Yesterday I started to get myself worked up over NaNoWriMo. The premise is that you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. You switch off your inner editor and inner critic and just write until you hit 50,000 words. This is basically 1667 words a day. Don't worry about whether it is well written, well punctuated, well structured...... just get the words down.

All well and good, if you actually have even a slight idea of what you are going to write about!

I discovered NaNo nearly 3 years ago. In January. NaNo takes place in November. So I'd missed it. But I wanted to give it a go and didn't want to wait nearly a year to do it officially. I decided I would do it on my own for the month of February. I had an idea floating in my head from a dream I had had, so on Feb 1st I started. And somehow the words came. I made my target the first day, and the second and the third......and the story was evolving quite nicely. I hit day 14 and struggled a bit but made the word count. Then I stopped. I had no idea what to write next. I missed a day, I missed another day, and by then I was 3300 odd words behind! That was the end of my NaNo effort.

BUT I had written 25,000 words which was 25,000 words more than I'd had 14 days earlier. I still have those words somewhere.

This time I am signed up to the official website to start along with everyone else around the world on November 1st. And until an hour ago I didn't really have any idea what I was going to write. Unfortunately you can't use something you have already started as everyone has to start on a level playing field (although I'm sure there are some out there who bend the rules a bit). I'd convinced myself I couldn't do it and that I was going to look stupid after telling people, including my knitting group, that I was going to write a novel in a month. What was I thinking telling them?

But suddenly, from somewhere I have the inklings of a plot. I've written it down quickly just in case I forget it. The whole outline for my novel is 3 lines long. All I have to do now is expand it to 50,000 words!!!

Oh heck!!!

And just to make it a little bit more difficult I accidentally signed up for a mini Sock Wars called Day of the Dead. Guess when it starts? November 1st!!!