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Okay, it's no secret I'm a HYOOGE NaNoWriMo fangirl. You might be getting a little sick of hearing about it, perhaps. (Sorry!)

And maybe it's true that I have a tiny intellectual crush on its creator, Chris Baty. Okay, with a glass of cheap plonk in my hand, I might have admitted that to him at certain past parties, and then run away, blushing to my roots. (You buying that intellectual part? Lala totally buys it, but then again, I'm very patient with her crush on Kelly Hogan. We're good that way.)

So when he agreed to blog for us over at PensFatales? I'm bustin' with happiness, folks. Please come visit and drop a comment, will you?

Wishing all the writers well! This is my favorite time of year. Happy sigh.

Bethany and I are GOING TO THE NIGHT OF WRITING DANGEROUSLY!

Thank you to all who donated. We know you, and we adore you. We can give you hugs and thank you in person.

But there is one person we DON'T know, and that person was instrumental in sending us last year, too. L.R., we'd love to thank you, if you'd let us. You've blown our minds AGAIN with your generosity, and I woke Bethany up this morning (she was quite hungover, from her annual Halloween bash) to tell her the awesome news. We'd adore it if we could send you a little Nano token of thanks. If you'd prefer to remain quietly anonymous, we'd understand, but if you change your mind, please contact me. You've made our month. Also, you've given us the motivation to WRITE OUR LITTLE FINGERS OFF, starting tomorrow. So thank you, so very, very much.

And speaking of Halloween, Lala and I went to Beth's party as Harry Crane and Joan Holloway from Mad Men. What do you think?

I've been looking back at last year's post at this time. Did you know that last year I thought that I had my Nanowrimo novel plotted out? From beginning to end?

DO YOU KNOW THAT BOOK ALMOST KILLED ME?

Good lord. I am so naive.

This year, though. I totally have Nano dialed. Dialed, baby. I've been plotting in dispatch with my coworkers, and it's been a total blast to plot with people who aren't normally writers but who are going to be for the month of November (I've corralled them into the Nano madness — YIPPEE!). They're GOOD at it, too. I love to watch people's faces as they sit around saying "Well, what if this happened? And then what if there was a plane crash? Or if she was pregnant? And then there was a fire? And NINJAS?"

I love this kind of excitement. Remember, no matter what, if you're writing Nano with us, or if you're writing a short story, or if you're just idly thinking about writing something someday, it doesn't have to be good. At all. It can suck. It probably will and should suck. But then you have something to work with, right?

(As I was sitting at my desk this morning, at four am, wondering what in the bleeding hell I was doing sitting there at all (it was one of those mornings), trying to write a sex scene set ON THE BEACH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, I was telling myself that. It's okay for a scene to just be the worst thing ever. It's all fix-up-able. Later.)

Meanwhile, in Nano-news, my sister Bethany is fundraising again for the 2009 Write-a-Thon Fundraiser, and I'd sure appreciate it if you considered sponsoring her. HER LINK IS HERE.

All the money goes to the Office of Letters of Light, the machine behind Nano and the Young Writers Program, which is all about promoting writing for writing's sake, anywhere, everywhere, all the time. They are seriously rad and we love them and they do so much.

(If she raises two hundred, she gets to go. If she raises three hundred, she TAKES ME WITH HER as her guest. Ahem. I really, really want to go. So with all our hearts, thank you.)

 
Bethany as really cool sailor, ready to write. I'm holding on tight so as not to drown if the boat goes down. Not kidding.

With two guest appearances:

The winner (J.A.) has been notified by email, and what I didn't say in the video (I was just so surprised!) was that she was in my very first ever critique group, back in undergrad days, almost fifteen years ago. She was one of the very first to ever, ever read my work. It's so . . . fitting. (But I also wanted it to be you.)

That was really fun. I think I'll like this giving things away gig a lot.

Kisses. And a growl from Digit, because that means love in his language. (Really, it does.)

Last chance! For romance! No, not really. There's always more time for that. It's just time for you to sign up to be on my mailing list! I won't spam you, sell your list to ANYONE and every month I'll give a little something away to someone on that list, just for fun, because I think that would be fun.

And TONIGHT, I'll draw the winner of the How To Knit a Love Song ARC! In the meantime, you can sign up right here (if you haven't already):

Name:

E-mail:

Okay, come back later! I'll tell you who won! (I'll email the winner, never you fear. I hope it's YOU!)