National Novel Writing Month — NaNoWriMo for short — comes around every single November, and it’s here once again in 2019! For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a novel in a month, every November, but it’s much more than just a writing challenge. There’s a whole website and organization devoted to it, and writers use it for all sorts of purposes, often setting their own goals, but the general, basic version of the challenge is: write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. Check out the official website here and learn more!
For myself, I’ve struggled with figuring out what to do for NaNoWriMo for the past two years. When I’m already writing so much every month, what do I do to engage in a special month all about writing? But I figured it out, and I’m excited to set forth specific goals for myself for NaNoWriMo.
If you’ve seen my new Upcoming Works page — first introduced in my previous blog post — then you’ll know I have several new, non-Greysons novels in the works for next year. And I thought “Hey, wait, one of these is a perfect pick for NaNoWriMo!”
Project: Seven is the pick I chose for this month, trying to complete its first draft by the end of November. While it might seem more reasonable to focus in on Project: Snow which is planned for earlier in the year — Project: Seven is planned for Autumn 2020 — every other story in the works for next year are coming along really nicely.
Project: Seven is, well… not.
It’s a strange situation where I know the ending of the book perfectly, I’m so excited for where the story’s going, but everything leading up to it has been giving me tons of trouble. It’s been going very slowly, and I often look at it, think “Hey, I should work on this,” and then end up working on something else instead.
So NaNoWriMo is here, the perfect opportunity for me to give myself a kick in the pants and make it happen.
Project: Seven is also likely to be the shortest novel I’ve ever written — it’s a more contained, focused storyline than the sprawling ensemble stories I’ve spent so much time in, and that means if I can just buckle down and do it, I’ll be able to reach that ending I’m so excited about.
And then I can get to editing! That’s part of why Project: Seven is planned for later next year despite its length. I feel like it’s gonna need a ton of rewriting and revising. I love the editing process, but I try to avoid editing heavily until a story is complete, until I have a finished draft, because then I can look at a story beginning-to-end and have a proper perspective on the whole thing when making changes. So the sooner I finish Project: Seven, the sooner I can properly polish up this story to be the best it can be.
For those interested, I’ll be posting daily word count updates on social media, and I hope to see how other writers are doing on their own NaNoWriMo challenges! Share with me what you’re up to and how your challenge is going. It’s great for writers to encourage each other, so don’t shy away, and don’t ever feel like you’re not doing enough of you have to measure up to the same word counts as other writers.
I talked about this in my previous blog post, but I tend to write quite quickly… but it wasn’t always that way. I’ve been telling stories since I was little, I’ve been writing since I learned how to write. I have two decades of writing behind me, a really strong foundation of both personal experience and really fantastic mentors helping me grow, so my daily word counts are unlikely to be the same as your own. And keep in mind, the NaNoWriMo thing about writing 50,000 words in a month… only about 15% of NaNoWriMo participants hit that number. But far more than 15% percent come out of NaNoWriMo having accomplished a great deal, writing more regularly than they ever have before, completing personal projects or making great progress on them. It’s not so much about the numbers. It’s a personal project, a personal challenge. Figure out what’s reasonable for you, what matters to you, and dive in!
I’ll be back at the end of NaNoWriMo with a report on all I accomplished outside of Greysons — obviously the Arc V chapters will continue, and I’m hard at work preparing Book II for publication — and I’ll probably update at the midway point? I’m not sure yet, I have a lot of things I’d love to write about, to properly blog more regularly. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you look forward to what’s to come. And good luck all you writers in your NaNoWriMo efforts!