For thousands of people tonight is not about the terror of Halloween… it is about the terror that tomorrow NaNoWriMo starts.

For those of you too lazy to click the link, let me tell you a little about NaNoWriMo. This bizarre words stands for ‘National Novel Writing Month’. The national is not really applicable as it is real InaNoWriMo (international!). Around the world, right now, thousands of writers and would-be writers are coming to the realization that tomorrow they have to start writing a book and they are not in the slightest prepared. (And if you think you are, you aren’t!)

This is my second stab at this insanity. A couple of years ago I attempted the feat – to ‘complete’ a 50,000 word novel in a month – and failed. Life got in the way and I let me project slide beyond the state where it could be revived and the target hit.

Will this year be different? Who knows! I can already see problems: on the 8th I am flying to Japan. But, a 12 hour flight is a good chance to get some writing done, right? And while I am in Japan I am making a brief side trip up to the disaster zone, as my novel has a chunk of it set there… maybe.

So, forget about the ghosts and goblins ringing your doorbell tonight. Tomorrow you will have some real demons to wrestle with!

Good luck, fellow NaNoWriMo-ers. And, to the partners and friends of this insane group of people, please, give them a chance! This is a hard enough task without someone stomping on your dreams.

See you in a month.