It’s 11:00 P.M. on the eve of NaNoWriMo. At this time, in each of the last two years, I was blissfully asleep, dreaming of plot points, laugh-snoring at those who choose to stay up until midnight to get a “head start” on their novels. I was the sleeping tortoise; they were the jumpity hares. I knew I would finish and that a night of sleep was better than a flinch at the firing of a gun.

So, why am I up, counting down the minutes to midnight? Because of the story that has redirected my NaNo this year. I was going to write any one of a half dozen novels that have been percolating in my head for years. I’ve been very excited about several of them. But then, out of nowhere, a little story called WOOL began to catch fire. And as I watched, in just the last few minutes, it sold its 1000th copy, just in the month of October. 1000 copies! It sits at #35 on the Kindle store in all of Science Fiction. Right above the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and below Speaker for the Dead. In the ENTIRE Kindle store, it’s at 1,170. There’s only 1,169 books selling better than WOOL right now. In the entire universe.

I have no idea how or why this is happening. But it can’t be ignored. Strike while the iron is hot, they say. And since the only complaint about WOOL is that readers want more of it, I’m abandoning all those hopeful novels and continuing this little short story during the next month.

The plan is three more stories of similar length (20,000 words each). Taken as a collection, they will comprise my NaNo entry for 2011. Afterward, I’ll revise each one and release them much as WOOL was on the Kindle store. Then I’ll take them all and combine them into a thick book for physical purchase.

So, that’s the plan. I have the plots for all three stories already mapped out. Now it’s just a matter of getting up tomorrow morning and writing. And doing that every morning for the month of November.

But right now, I’m still up, refreshing my sales page, watching numbers tick slowly, wondering what the hell is going on, and loving every minute of it.

Happy NaNo, boys and girls! Here we GO!