Gearing up for November

Somewhat on a lark, I've decided to try NaNoWriMo this year. I'm not really sure what I'm thinking, considering I haven't written anything non-academic since high school, and I'm already straining the creative portion of my brain with Illustration Friday. But I guess that just shows that my creative self needs to get taken out for a bit more exercise, and what better time to get started than now!

I am planning to do a Fantasy story, because I get very caught up in details, and with Fantasy I can just make up whatever details I don't feel like researching :D Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be overly lazy; I've already been reading up on things like horses, boats, rivers, and physics (and learning quite a bit). There is just so much that I don't know in general, I know I'll have to concoct some of it. And so it is fortunate that the Fantasy genre exists, where readers will expect some creative license by the author :)

In any case, I have been busy building out my world and characters, and hoping that a plot will arise from this playstage.

I don't currently plan to feature Trogdor in the story, but you never know.

Also in the spirit of planning, I put together a calendar for what my cumulative wordcount should be any given day in November. I found something like this very helpful when studying for an exam last year. Of course there were days when I fell behind, but knowing exactly how far I was behind or ahead (ha!) helped keep me on track.
I set up the spreadsheet with the assumption of writing a static number of words per day. You can export (File > Export) the document to Excel and change the rate to suit your own schedule.
If you try out the spreadsheet, drop me a comment. I put it together just because I'm an Excel nut, but it's always nice to know if other people have found it useful :)