I just realized that we’re leaving for our Singapore trip in less than two months, and I still have half of the novel to finish. Gaaah!

Not that having an unfinished novel is going to affect our time in Singapore, but I’ve been considering it as sort of an arbitrary deadline to get at least the first draft done before we get on that plane. I’ll be busy doing research for the book, not to mention research for the various travel writing assignments I’ve picked up over the last few weeks, so I don’t want to be too distracted from finishing the novel.

So I’ve decided to make August my own personal writing project, aka MaNoWriMo, or Marjorie’s Novel Writing Month. Modeled after NaNoWriMo, it’ll be — gulp — 50,000 words in 30 days. Okay, well, August has 31 days, so that’s a bonus. I think I remember aiming for 3,000 words a day last November during the official NaNoWriMo period (although the NaNo folks themselves recommended ~1667 to reach the goal of 50k by November 30th), so I’ll do go for that again.

What I do remember from last November is thinking that I didn’t want to be working on this same novel during NaNoWriMo 2008, so this is my chance to finish at least the first draft before the next go-round starts on November 1st. (I already have a couple of ideas for this year, one of which has been rolling around my head for at least two years, so I’m anxious to at least begin working on it.)

So wish me luck! I got bogged down with the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Singapore and haven’t even gotten to the actual fall of the city. But it’s just around the corner, and then the really meaty stuff starts. Sigh.