Greetings and Salutations -

I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had one filled with joy, laughter, and delicious food! I hope the non-Thanksgiving-celebraters had that too, just without the special reason for it :).

I had a dinner with my boyfriend Bob, my father, and my father's girlfriend. It was a lovely afternoon.

When I got home I worked for 60 minutes on my mystery novel that I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month. I have now officially crossed the 50,000 word mark! Since November 1st I have tried to write each day, and I held myself to a limit of 60 minutes or less on a given day. I wanted to do a test to see if it was possible for a busy parent / worker / full-time-student to achieve their dream of writing a novel. The answer is unequivocally yes! With that limit of only an hour a day, and even skipping a few days due to my schedule, I have still reached the 50,000 word mark. I will still keep writing until November 30th, to finish off my plot.

If you've ever dreamed about writing a novel, absolutely I encourage you to begin it. We all have so many excuses in life that hold us back. Our world is full of discouraging voices who say "it's too hard" or "it won't be good enough" or so on.

Remember, this is only your first draft! It's just a starting point!

As Ian wisely shared at our gathering (speaking via Skype from England), you can't edit "nothing". You need to create that first draft in order to move forward.

You don't need to wait for next year's NaNoWriMo! You don't even have to wait for January 1st. Just start. Plunk down for an hour and pour out your thoughts. You can always rearrange them later, polish them, tweak them, and perfect them. Taking that first step is the key! We are here to help!

Have a great weekend!

Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

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