Wednesday, October 19, 2011

NaNoWriMo 2011

After one failed attempt at novel writing, I am trying it again alongside some of our best and brightest students. I finally came up with an idea for a YA novel that involves dolphins. I've checked out some books from the library and am furiously studying the latest information about dolphin/human interactions and dolphin behavior.

As they say, you should write what you know and so I am basing my story on a very brief encounter I had with a dolphin when I was about 10 years old. Four of us kids were splashing and making all kinds of racket in the water when two fins came up out of the water and went back down. Our first  thought was sharks so we hightailed it back to shore screaming. Someone calmed us down and asked us if each creature had one or two fins which came out of the water. When we realized that they each had one (the dolphin's tail is flat) we learned that we had missed an opportunity to visit with dolphins. It turned out that a scientist that was studying communication with dolphins had his lab around the corner from our bay and our visitors may have been attracted from there by our noise.

Visit the NaNoWriMo website at http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/ if you are a student interested in writing a novel in November or http://nanowrimo.org/ if you are an adult. Join the fun!

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