If you're a writer, the gossip is all about what you are doing as part of National Novel Writing Month. The goal: 50,000 words in 30 days. Simple math breaks it down: 1666.66 words a day. Doable, unless you slog at the keyboard like I do. For me, 1500 words in one day is a huge deal and frankly even that pace wears me out after a few days. Thanks God for Happy Hour to recharge the batteries.

Now in full disclosure, I'm not really participating in NaNoWriMo because I have a manuscript due before Thanksgiving and I'm about ten chapters shy of finishing. And unlike NaNoWriMo which discourages you from editing if it interferes with the word count, I can't turn in my manuscript without beating it with my harshest editorial club. If you're intimidated by the blinking cursor on your monitor, there's a saying to help prod you into starting those first words: Give yourself permission to write crap. Well my first draft is so full of crap that I have to wear rubber boots and muck out my writing space every afternoon.

For the rest of you NaNoWriMo-renos, try these strategies to keep the words flowing:

Write what you love. Unicorns, cupcakes, serial killers, old flames you'd like to see baked into cupcakes by a serial-killer unicorn, have at it.

And conversely, challenge yourself to write something different. 

Keep plenty of hot drinks handy, especially coffee.  Especially coffee. I don't consider that I've got a buzz going unless my teeth are chattering.

Steal! And by that I mean shamelessly take from every experience. Car wrecks, rejection, watching a foe get his due, anything and everything is manuscript fodder. You know you're doing it right when your BFF is laying out her heart about her cheating rat-bastard boyfriend, then she gives you a look and asks, "You're going to use this in your story, aren't you?" And because you write fiction, you lie and tell her, "Of course not." But you will. Good writer.

We even have a theme song and music video, so we must be official!

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Over at the League of Reluctant Adults, we welcome a new member, Kevin Hearne, and we're busting at the seams with pride over his debut novel, Hounded. Unlike the rest of us mortals, he didn't get an ARC but an ARE, Advance Reader's Edition, because he is Mr. Hearne and so very special. Awesome cover.

And there's more about another Leaguer, 10 Things You Didn't Know About Carolyn Crane, over at the Amber Scott Project. Among other things, Crane was a licensed boiler engineer and wrestled rooms full of sweaty men. Click through for details.