As everyone knows, November is Novel Writing Month.  This year I've decided to throw my hat in the ring.  The rules are simple: "On November 1, begin writing. Your goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, local time, on November 30th."

I will not torture Friends of the Blog with content from my NaNoWriMo novel, Tatiana's Box, unless by some fluke something so brilliant I just can't not share it pops up. (Hey — a pop-up novel — there's an idea!), but I'll keep you abreast of my progress, or lack thereof.

Here's the dust-flap synopsis...

When Addy, at his mother's urging, decides to visit his family's old summer home on Lake Balaton in Hungary five years after the regime change, he's hardly prepared for the swinging scene his estranged, roguish Uncle Ivan, who abandoned the family in '56 only to seize the vacation home for himself 35 years later, has conjured up there: a glorified flophouse for cynical Americans on the make and hard-boiled Ukrainian girls hoping for a way to the West. But among the chain-smoking, heavy drinking, and cheap sex, the plotting and scheming and international intrigue of the "Cat House" he finds Tatiana, a beguiling young woman, fiercely independent, but in over her head.

Wish me luck!