Gearing up for NaNoWriMo

I’m pretty sure pre-planning was the reason I powered through 53,000 words in 30 days in 2010.

So as much as I hate to sit down and “plot,” I spent part of the weekend doing exactly that.

I’ve had the idea for this story for a while, ever since reading a story about a state legislature (I think it was in Oregon) that passed a law saying health care facilities needed to hire an interpreter for any language a patient spoke — including Klingon.

My first thought was: Wouldn’t it be funny for an uptight health care administrator to be forced to hire a Klingon interpreter? Melissa and Donovan were born. (Except I had to change her name to Allyson because I just finished writing a heroine named Melinda and didn’t want to get the two confused.)

Allyson — don’t dare call her Ally — is the uptight health care administrator; Donovan “Van” is the laid-back, happy-go-lucky guy who taught himself Klingon one long, boring summer. While she tries to get him to follow the rules, he makes it his project to get her to loosen up.

I’ll be trying something new with this MS — Scrivener. I downloaded the free trial Saturday and started playing around with it. Looks like it’ll be interesting.

I’d like to be able to say that won’t be around as much this next month while I immerse myself in the craziness that is NaNoWriMo. But considering how little blogging I’ve been doing lately, I don’t need to say it. Once or twice a month is already “not around much.”

So I’ll just say “sayonara” for now. After a month of writing dangerously, I’ll see you on the flip side — with a brand-new manuscript for editing/submission.