It’s that time of year again! I have probably lost my mind, but despite all of the craziness of my life lately, I’m going to do NaNoWriMo again this year. For those of you new to NaNoWriMo, November is National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you write a novel during November and try to make it to 50,000 words before midnight, December 1st. It’s a lot of fun and this will be my fifth year participating.

Unfortunately, I dropped out early two of those five years — one of them being last year. This year I fully intend to stick with it until the end. I figure, my life is crazy anyway, so why not?

Most Wrimos spend October (or earlier) getting ready to write. Each person has their own process. I like to outline my novel and get to know my characters. So far, I’m off to a great start!

To kick off the month of preparation, I thought I’d share the character interview worksheet that my ENG-281 (Creative Writing) professor handed out back in Fall 2008 when I took that course. It’s a great worksheet and I use it often. Feel free to use it and change it so that it will work for you.

If you do use it, please leave a comment and let me know how it worked out for you! Good luck!