Tchaippachino & Laptop

My first attempt at NaNoWriMo three years ago was when I was still in the United States where the event originated. I wrote in the sort of frenzied zeal you can only drum up when you don’t know what you’re doing and no one has told you that you’re doing it wrong. It was a terrible novel, but it ended up over 80,000 words long and a ton of fun to create.

When we moved to the Netherlands, much of my writing energy shifted over to blogging, but I still made an effort to write some short stories last November about a hard-boiled detective cat and his raccoon sidekick. This novel was less successful, but I was excited to discover that NaNoWriMo is really the “World Novel Writing Month” and that the Netherlands had a strong showing.  Every year the various regions are ranked by word count and the combined Holland & Belgium group had a strong showing despite our relatively small region size.

This year I know of several people here in Maastricht, as well as many other places in the Netherlands, writing their 2010 novels. Both my husband and I are participating this year, but there is always room for more so I challenge you dear reader to take on NaNoWriMo and add to the Holland & Belgium region word count. You’re only a couple days behind.

If you want to join the fun, sign up on the NaNoWriMo website and join the Europe :: Holland & Belgium region. This will give you access to the forum where all the local writers can communicate and arrange meet-ups. The forum is kept in both English and Dutch, so don’t feel intimidated about posting in the language you find most comfortable. Several write-ins have been planned throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, including a regular Thursday write-in in Maastricht and even a “traveling” write-in for people who prefer to write on the train. If you want to “friend” other writers, you can do that as well. I’m “locusta” on the site.

Once you’ve signed up, just start writing on a new project (officially a novel, but many people use the time to write for their blog or to write nonfiction). Keep your caffeinated beverage of choice near at hand and be sure to add your word count to the site and help push our region up the ranks.  Happy Writing!

This article was originally published on Maastricht Region to Live.

I’ll probably be posting frequently about the challenge here in addition to my usual blogging, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions feel free to make them. Now with no further ado, my answer to the day one task.

Day One Challenge: Write an Elevator Pitch

“A spotlight on the adventure and realities of expat life in Maastricht.”

Are you a Lady Blogger?

If you’re a lady blogger, feel free to join me and 400 other bloggers at the SITS community as we work through these challenges. You can learn more about the 31DBBB book here.

So I hope you enjoy it and if you see me missing an update, feel free to give me a swift kick in the pants. Or whatever metaphor is appropriate here in the Netherlands.

Yesterday was a good day. Dan and I visited Atomic comics in Sittard; the closest comic book store to Maastricht, followed by high tea at John Mullins. After our late “lunch”, I got some good blogging done and then we went out for drinks with a couple from our language class.

After dinner I discovered that Dave, a fellow Maastricht-based blogger from Random Walks in the Low Country, had recognized Maastricht Minutiae with the Beautiful Blogger Award. I’ve never received a blogging award nomination before and I’m very honored. I read Random Walks and really enjoy how Dave sounds so natural living here. His photos are always tipping me off to things that I’ve missed.

The award comes with some required actions, including writing seven things about myself and nominating up to 7 additional bloggers. So without further ado…

5 Nominated Bloggers

1. Invading Holland: Very funny.
2. 24 Oranges: The first expat blog I started following when we move to the Netherlands.
3. Crossroads Magazine: Great for Maastricht-related stories.
4. Franco Phoney: Whose blog about living in France I discovered via Absolute Write.
5. PlagiarismToday: Which isn’t about expats at all, but has great information about plagerism, copyright, and other similar issues.

7 (hopefully) Odd/Interesting Facts about Amanda

1. I was born in Alaska and lived in a small village above the arctic circle for 4 years.
2. I am the eldest kid in my family, but the only girl so I tend to be a bit of a tomboy.
3. I learned to like beer when working as an archaeologist.
4. I’ve been scuba diving twice; once in the middle of winter. In Greece.
5. I was hit by a car in Ireland in 2001. I’m mostly over my car phobia by now. >_>
6. I have an unexplained interest in abandoned shoes.
7. My personal philosophy in life is to “Organize Things & Help People”.

Beautiful Blogger Rules (change as desired)

1. Thank the person who gave you the award
2. Paste the award on your blog
3. Link the person who nominated you for the award
4. Share 7 interesting things about yourself
5. Nominate 7 bloggers or less

I am pretty excited about this article going live, so I encourage you to swing by Crossroads Magazine and check it out.