Are You Ready for NaNo?

I am.

In fact, thanks to a post from one of the folks in the Pagan NaNo group on Facebook, I'm focused on tackling the reverse NaNo/NaNo rewards way of approaching the novel-writing process.  It's very simple - by November 30, you are left with 1 word to write to reach your 50,000 word goal.  You can find calendars of it online.

Personally, I like to search DeviantArt for a NaNo calendar to use as desktop wallpaper.

But this time I did something a little different.  There is a particular model who resembles my main character in "Project Muffin Man".  I love her photographs.  There is one that I used as a reference as I wrote the first book.  Now that I've decided my NaNo project will be the sequel to "Project Muffin Man" (I must give it a codename too), I chose another of the model's photographs and created my NaNo calendar next to it.

It looks like this:

Fabulous.  Now I have both my word count goals for each day and my "main character" featured on my desktop.  I messaged the model about a month ago to tell her that her pictures resembled the main character.  Maybe if "Project Muffin Man" gets picked up in the querying process, I can ask the publisher to use this model's wonderful photographs for covers.  ;)

I was quite pleasantly surprised when the stock photo that reminds me of Saville in Heart & Fire was used by Eternal's cover artist.  When I emailed them the link and said that the model, her clothing and gun resembled Saville, I hoped but never imagined they would actually use it.

It's nice to have that kind of input - to say "THIS girl *is* my main character" and for the publisher to go with your vision!

Yes, I will post that cover...  Maybe after NaNo.  ;)

So, are you ready for NaNo?

Copyright (c) 2011 Wendy L. Callahan