My region of NaNoWriMo 

I live in one of the poorest counties in Florida.  And I LOVE it!

 Why, you might ask?  

Here’s a picture taken just outside my front gate:  

Notice the lack of (1) traffic and (2) people. Notice the abundance of trees. Yep, trees don’t tend to complain about their neighbors dogs.

When I looked up the NaNoWriMo regions, I was shocked to find there are 72 people signed up for my County! 

This is the world of monster trucks, hey-y’all-watch-this, wrestling…and the rich section is the place where the triple-wide mobile homes are located.  I didn’t know how many of the 72 were going to show up, but  I might have if I’d checked my NaNoWriMo email before leaving the house.

Of course, due to an entirely avoidable lack of planning, my writer’s imagination shifted into overdrive wondering what to expect.

• What if they were all in high school and I was the only one in the crowd who remembered what a manual typewriter looked like?
• What if someone I knew and couldn’t stand was crazy enough to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, too?

There were more imaginings, but I’d asked my sister-in-law to go there with me just in case the Ninja book thieves tried to descend upon us and steal all of our book ideas with their brain-drain technology.

We walked into the Italian-style restaurant that’s been a landmark for well over 30 years, Niko’s.  One giant room with pad-less seats, I had no way of knowing which benches contained writers.

• There was no sign saying “NaNoWriMo Table.”
• Nothing screamed, “THESE PEOPLE ARE WRITERS! RUN!”

Well…if no one showed up, we’d simply have dinner and leave.  

Two people asked if they could sit at our bench.  No, they weren’t writers.  They were in their 70’s and just purchased new smart phones.  They spent most of their time trying to get the D@#ned things to work. 

This venture into writerville was not looking good.

My sister-in-law, pictured above, has a blog site:  https://djblue1654.wordpress.com.  

To tell you how well she fits into the family, her blog is called “Ramblings of a Crazy Old Lady.” 

She can walk into any place and start making friends while I’m sitting in the corner watching her shine.  

So, yes, she stopped a woman walking by our table and asked, “Are you a writer?”

“No, but my daughter is.”’

Eureka! 

Or not.

Ends up, her daughter lives in Utah.

Fortunately, the waitress pointed me to the table of writers.  I took a deep breath, hoped they weren’t going to hate me, and said hello.

Here’s a photo of the brave and talented people who actually showed up.

I can tell you their names, but can’t remember in what order the names belong:  Robert and Evelyn Cruze, Angela Dabelko, Colton Corbett. 

And the person in the dark glasses hiding behind Bob is FloridaBorne.

After admiring Bob’s prolific writing skills I looked at Evelyn’s ability to write an outline in a spiral notebook.

I think I have outline envy.  She knows exactly how her book is going to be written. 

Unfortunately,  my books ALWAYS start in the middle, then I have to find the backstory and…oh, yeah…it’s good to have an ending, too.  But I never know how it’s going to end until my fingers tell me.

It may be easier for PLANNER to write an outline, but not a PANTSER.  Instead of a coherent progression, the first draft might look more like a picture of a dog with the head on the butt, the tail wagging out of the neck and the chest attached to a unicycle.  If I had to write an outline first, or die,  my skeleton would be spending a month staring at a blank piece of paper.

Another great thing about meeting Bob, Evelyn, Angela, and Colten was the fact that they were either around my age and/or possibly as not-quite-right as the crazy lady in the dark glasses.

I plopped down next to them and said, “Hi, I’m FloridaBorne.”

Bob said, “Here, have this.”

My thanks for the warm welcome!

Will I be able to I write a blog post each day in November?

I have no idea.  Ask my sister-in-law around the 15th of November if I’m still in front of my computer or I’ve been moved to a rubber room.