Brief Author Bio:

Hi! I'm Jessica (or RA, if you want). I'm in my fourth year of college, attending the University of Hawaii at Hilo and majoring in Japanese Studies. I've been writing since middle school; I started out writing fanfictions then switched to original stories the summer after high school. The summer after high school (summer of '05) was also when I wrote my first novel and first heard of NaNoWriMo, through a spin-off event called the Gaian SuWriMos in the Writers forum on Gaia Online.

2005 was the first year I participated in NaNoWriMo, and I've done it every year since then--and reached 50k all three years as well. The first year was the best; I finished about a week and a half early, and went on to finish my rough draft by April at almost 100k. 2006 I did something very stupid (or not, depending on how you see it...), and switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout in the last week of October which shot my typing speed all to hell. I got my 50k by the end of the month, but barely. 2007 was something of a failure; I absolutely hated my novel. I was in such a rush to reach 50k over the Thanksgiving weekend and be done with it already, that I did the unthinkable - I went back in and added sex scenes for padding.

This year, 2008, I hope will be much more like 2005, with the addition of not stopping once I reach 50k. I want to get to at least 75k before the end of the month, maybe even 100k, and I've got an epic high fantasy trilogy plot to help me (just doing the first book, though). I'm ready for another successful November!