Thank goodness NaNoWriMo is over for 2009… for most of us. I know there are some out there still madly pounding away at their keyboards hoping to get to 50K before midnight. I know because I’ve done it myself, once or twice. But most of us have walked away already secure in the knowledge that if we can write 50,000 words on a novel in less than thirty days, we can do almost anything.

I still can’t do calculus or trigonometry and I’m not all that great at chemistry though I did take and pass an organic chemistry class in college. No matter… I can WRITE and that’s what makes me happy.

My novel this year is about a Bigfoot named Oja. Oja is a lovable but challenging character because I perceive her as having a huge brain capacity with special gifts we humans don’t have, therefore it was hard to describe her perceptions and to imagine her abilities. Nevertheless, the story took form and she became a fascinating personality to explore. I’m still not done with it… but I’m fairly close to the end.

My future novels will be written with a whole lot more pre-planning. I recently purchased the Snowflake Pro software and am using it to develop another novel, one I wrote back in 2002, but never revised. This novel, The Alyssa Project, was one I wrote without the help of NaNoWriMo. It is a YA story of about 58,000 words. I’ve changed a lot as a writer since 2002 and that means I’ve got a lot of work to do in bringing the manuscript up to my new standards.

During November I also purchased the Write or Die Desktop Edition … a great ten dollar investment. It made me write without thinking too much about which way the plot was going, and that brought up some great ideas for the story. I recommend it highly!

Inspiration hit today when I suddenly had to write a lens titled Christmas on a Tight Budget. The ideas kept coming and I finished the project in just a few hours. I’m sure there won’t be a lot of sales from the lens – after all, it is speaking to people with little money – but if anything does get sold it will benefit my favorite charity, Covenant House. This charity helps get homeless teenagers off the streets.

A lot of the teenagers helped by Covenant House were released from foster care with no family and no place to go. I recently made another lens, Drugging Foster Children, which included videos of teenagers telling about how they’d been given multiple psychotropic drugs while in state custody. In one video a teenager stated that when his brother had his eighteenth birthday his foster parent woke him up in the middle of the night, just past midnight, and told him he was eighteen and to get out. This boy didn’t even know his real family. He was sent to the streets. Covenant House helps children in this predicament every day.

Many families are low on funds now, with the recession taking jobs and homes. We need to remember that there are many ways to celebrate Christmas, and that money is not the reason for the season.