November's Tomorrow, Right?

As I reported earlier, I now have my idea for NaNoWriMo. I spent the week fleshing out the story and getting to know my characters and setting. So far, so good. I have about three quarters of the action figured out (maybe even a little more) and am actually quite anxious to just get started. I don't expect to get much further on the outline. I never know how stories are going to end until the last minute. Flaky as it sounds, the characters decide that. At a certain point in the story, the ending just falls into my lap. And, boy, do I love the feeling that comes with a new story: the excitement, the promise, the sense that I can make just about anything happen that sounds good to me (now, selling it is another matter, am I right?). It's the closest I've come to pure joy since becoming an adult. Absolute, unmuddled happiness is the realm of children, I think, but creation gets me close. I just wish I could start writing NOW...but that would be cheating. Meh.

Now I just need to put my writing time to good use before November 1st gets here. And I think I know just what to do: short stories. I have a few ideas written down in one of my many notebooks. I've focused on novels for the last few years and think it might be time to go back to my roots (especially now that the Nobel is on the table for ladies writing shorts, right? Ha!). I used to write tons of short stories (I thought they were easier at the time; now, not so much), even worked three of them into novel length projects. But it might be fun to try to sell some (fun probably equals rejection letters,but hey, gotta deflate my big head somehow). I have a few I wrote in college that I might try to rework if they're even worth salvaging. I also started one yesterday, so we'll see how that develops. Okay, back to work.

Bonus: I'm set up in Starbucks today (Friday, remember?) and thanks to this new 'La Boulange' thing they have going (French for 'pretentious')(just joshing, Starbucks, you know I love ya) they've been passing out free samples all morning. Score! Okay, back to work for real now...