Good suggestions--thanks.

Or maybe Berkeley. Very much more laid back and hippy dippy, but still very competitive, especially in the sciences, suprisingly. They collaborate with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has one of the few particle accelerators in the country, which is why San Francisco is one of the three cities they have the particle accelerator conference in. (Thanks, Dad.)

Hi everyone. I'm afraid I haven't spent much time here, as I've been away from writing original fiction for about, um, a decade or so. And that made me sad. Anyway, I'm glad to see that there are a lot of people on the board getting their writing on.

erikaj, I'm sorry you're not getting much response from your submissions. College-wise, maybe Boston College or one of the state colleges. Not necessarily less rigorous, academically, but less snoot factor.

Go P-C!

So, is anyone doing Nanowrimo? I'm thinking of giving it a shot this year.

I'd like to, although I've never succeeded at it before. I've been having a really hard time carving out time for writing with my job, so I don't know if an added deadline would be a good thing or a bad thing, but I have a few different ideas, so it wouldn't be for lack of a story.

Even if it just kickstarted me into writing regularly again, it would count as a win.

Now I have to think about how I would do it. Figuring out the time to write beforehand is key for me or it just slips by.

Every year I mean to do NaNo and don't. This year I have a friend whose whole family is doing it and she's poking me with sticks to get me to keep her company. I can find time to write at least an hour a day most days. It's getting my butt in the chair and putting words on the page that's hard.

Still haven't settled on a concept. I may just start writing with no idea what will come out of me, and see what happens.

I may just start writing with no idea what will come out of me, and see what happens.

That can be fun, and also sometimes enlightening.

So far I have three paragraphs. But it's a start, right?

I have written a sentence.

A post by Maggie Stiefvater (she wrote the Shiver books -- werewolves -- and The Scorpio Races, and the Raven Boys books) on NaNoWriMo: [link]

I don't know my ending. I do know why I'm writing what I'm writing, more or less. I think.

I'm realizing, though, that I have characters, setting, and themes, but not an actual plot.

I wrote about 1,200 words today. The nanowrimo site said I should have 1,600, but whatever.