Gearing up for NANOWRIMO

After a year's hiatus, I'm returning this November for my 3rd NANOWRIMO (or National Novel Writing Month).  If you've never heard of this, check out their website.  This is one of the most challenging writing challenges I've ever taken on and somehow, despite the stress, I have a blast with it.  It's very motivating to be sweating out word count deadlines with hundreds of thousands of others and very freeing to completely abandon my inner editor and just write at a breakneck speed.  The outcome isn't always spectacular, but having done it twice -- I have one novel I really like (and my daughters love) and a second that's pretty cruddy, but taught me a lot.  Not bad.  There are a number of novelists who wrote their books during NANOWRIMO, including Sara Gruen who wrote Water for Elephants one dark November.

Now, it's true -- only a man with absolutely no responsibilities for Thanksgiving meals would schedule such a thing in November.  Apparently, Chris Baty chose November because he thought it was a dull month with nothing much happening.  Hah!  Clearly, he doesn't have 40 or so of his nearest and dearest over for turkey and trimmings or if he does, he's not the one doing the cooking and cleaning.  Our idyllic mountain location makes us the family destination for a huge Thanksgiving Turkey bash, which includes my sis and her family staying for 5-6 days that week too.  It's an event we look forward to all year, making November just about the toughest month possible for me -- but heck, just heap that onto the challenge :)

This year I'm extra geared up because I'm teaching a Creative Writing class that has already begun a 10-week version of Nano with a goal of 15,000 words.  They're waiting for me to put my money where my mouth is and get started too.  So, now all I need is a plot.... any ideas?