Vuja De

I used to experience déjà vu all of the time. We're talking on a daily basis here, and sometimes they weren't just a flash, which is how I generally experience this phenomenon, but in long, drawn out episodes. I usually chalk this up to living a pretty predictable life and having low expectations. So, I try to ignore them or suppress them and only pay attention if they seem really strong.
Now, I must say that I don't recall ever having one immediately prior to a big event in my life, or even a little event in my life for that matter, but I have a good memory and a desire to experience the uncommon.
I'm not sure what you call the other side of déjà vu - the day or time you were flashing forward to, but it is a whole other can of beans.
This morning, a little after 9:30 am PDT, while washing dishes, I had a strong flash of "this is that day that I was looking at through that déjà vu. Sifnigicant? I don't know. I hope not, since lately all of the news coming into my life has been bad news (nothing wrong with yours truly, but friends of mine are going through some tough times). After one serious thought about what this portends, my first "Eric" thought was "First Contact!".

Winter is coming, and right before it, November.

Every year I compete in National Novel Writing Month during the month of November. I have been doing this for over a decade and look forward to the month of mad writing more than is probbaly healthy, well at least healthy for my writing.
With all of that said, I am strongly thinking about not doling NaNoWriMo this year. Bear with the explanation - I have developed a process where in during the month of Spetember I come up wiht an idea, then spend the month of October researching and preparing spreadsheets, etc so that I can dive right in at 12:01 a.m. on November 1st. But, it's just turning into August today and I have the idea (no process needed to narrow it down) and I have been working on the background ideas, and I think the only research will be making sure that I am not accidentally lifting plots from other stories. I don;t want to sit on this until November, but I also don't think if I were to start today that I could make myself write as much as I do then, nor will I be ready to do this again in November. Okay, even to me, that sounds like kind of a lame cop-out.
I'm a writer and I do write all the time - but not just on novels. I have totally convinced myself that writing blogs and forum posts counts for my daily word count (or whatever), but really? Maybe if I were hilarious or making the big bucks then I could count that kind of writing.

Well then, we can't have me feeling lame for months and months. And if I don't do NaNoWriMo this year, I think pretty much the only excuse that would even come close to counting is, "I started in August and I'm still working on it." The whole purpose of a month of writing dangerously is to make writing a habit. After you have done the competition long enough to have more than a decade behind you, and more importantly to have developed a system for getting new novels going, you don't really need NaNo except for the word count deadlines, and since I just participate online, can't I just have an email service send me a daily reminder that I should be writing?

This post did not go where I thought it was going. I thought I would be writing a little post explaining that over the nexxt couple of months I would be reporting on my NaNo preparation, not one expalining that I can't do NaNo because I need to write now. I guess, instead I will just say that I will try and write about my progress and any techniques I come up with to keep myself motivated and on track.

This feels so liberating. I am actually quite excited about this project. So. Do you wanna know what I'm writing about? Well stay tuned. I will tease today by saying that this is my first foray in Urban Fantasy, or at least how I interpret the drama.