Hurray! I'm started on my NaNoWriMo novel, and it doesn't seem too bad. After a few hours of occasionally painful writing, I have slightly passed my daily word goal of 1750 words, with 1779. Good for me -- I'm off to a good start.

At any time, you can check my profile here. I should be updating my word count daily, and will eventually add an excerpt -- once I write one that seems, you know, exceptable.

Ok, better post this and see if the link works right.

Good luck all. Take care.

Ah, Halloween. The great American holiday, a chance to try on another identity, the perfect celebration for a culture whose biggest celebrities are actors. One day a year, we can all try our hand at the nation's highest profile job. It's a totally brilliant idea.

That may be why we have Halloween instead of the Day of the Dead. Maybe we more need to come to terms with changing identity than with dying. After all, we generally only die once. We may change identity -- geographically and socially mobile as we are -- dozens of times. Practice and enjoy. Get a little sugar high to dissipate the fear of change. Glorious.

Meanwhile, I pulled out Nancy Kress's excellent book _Dynamic Characters_ to begin preparing for NaNoWriMo. I now have more understanding of the woman who will tell my tale. Our story opens with her working as a legal assistant, falling far below the expectations her family had of her and expressed in the name Elja Boadiccea Johanssen. She's listening to a woman foisted on her by the partners, who thinks her husband's death by avatar should be actionable.

I'm looking forward to jumping into this story's roller coaster. Tomorrow the fun begins!

All right, I have a few goals to meet.

First off, $1000 in net poker winnings between October 25th and November 25th. At the moment, I'm $160 toward that goal. Of course, in poker you can go backwards.

Next, 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo in November. I managed this last year. This year I'm raising the bar by selecting a first person narrative. I won't be able to use the strategy of switching characters when I can't think of anything more to say about the current one. That strategy helped me greatly last year.

Next, there are the inevitable Amaranth commitments I intend to fulfill. We're having an initiation, and I have a lot of lines to learn for it, plus a doughnut sale in Portland later.

Then, I'm joining a Creative Process group. It will be meeting every Monday from Nov. 10th through the end of January. Don't really know what that will entail in work outside of class. Maybe we will make it up as we go along.

And, I'm hosting the family Thanksgiving the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

That, and my usual life is enough to pile in one month, don't you think?

By all that's merciful, may I escape November without any further crises.