Happy Halloween & Let's Get Ready to Write!!

Happy Halloween, everybody!

It looks like the weather is going to cooperate with us this year. Temps are expected to be in the 60's, no blizzards, no precipitation of any kind, so the little ghouls and goblins should have a great time and come home with a huge bag of goodies.

I'm remembering how much fun I had taking my son, Alex, around to trick-or-treat when he was little. I wasn't really into the spirit of it this year, because he's still in Illinois, serving our country in the Navy. Last night I headed to Walmart because our coffee maker died and we needed a new one, and I ended up buying a table cloth, a witch hat, a candy bowl and a bag of candy and some treat bags. We don't usually get trick-or-treaters here, we're too far out of town, but my nephew, Cannon, is supposed to visit. He's Remy the Rat from the movie "Ratatouille". I can't wait to see him in his costume.

Or the pictures, is what I should say. I have to work tonight. Dangit. That's ok, Uncle Dude will be here.

The second part of my title is referring to National Novel Writing Month, which kicks off tonight at midnight. My goal this year is to be finished in 14 days, which is doable for me, I just have to double my daily word count, which is on average 2,000 words per day. I have my loose outline ready, just basically my premise and a few character names, and I am ready to write!

I also have a goal to take this year's novel to a publisher. I want to do something with the other novels I wrote that I still have lurking in my hard drive and on my backup disk. I haven't decided if I am going to combine them into one novel or try and rewrite them into a series. I'll see how things go this year and decide then.

I have also joined a new group, started by my good friend, Dorothy Thompson. She is moderator of "The Writing Life" writing group and owner and operator of her own online book promotion business called Pump Up Your Book Promotion. She has created a blog writing group to help writers who have blogs to up their SEO (Search Engine Optimization), by having the members visit each other's blogs and leave comments. It will help all of us increase our traffic to our blogs, our websites and hopefully, create more clients and opportunities for all of us. The group is called "PumpUpYourBlog" and it's through Yahoo! Groups. Here's the link: pumpupyourblog@yahoogroups.com.

One of the rules of membership is we have to blog at least 3 times a week. So you will all be hearing from me a lot more. Now, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, that depends on what I write about. LOL!! Just kidding.

One thing I do want to say, please get out and vote on Tuesday.
I know we are all sick and tired of the election coverage, the negative campaign ads, the lies and empty promises made by the candidates and their opponents, but this is more important this election year than in any other.

I don't care which party you are with, or what issues you would like to see changed, but it is our civic duty to vote. When you look back in history and see what women went through just to fight for the right to vote, you will make every effort, wait in any line for any length of time to vote.

We are privileged and blessed in this country beyond reason, and our men and women in our armed services fight everyday for our freedoms. Don't disrespect their sacrifices, their families sacrifices, by not making every effort to vote your conscience.

If you aren't registered yet to vote, there is still time, depending on what state you live in. You can check it out at JustVote.org.

Have a great Halloween and a great weekend! I'll post my word count progress through the next couple of weeks and if anyone else is participating for NaNoWriMo, comment here and we can cheer each other on.