What NaNoWriMo Taught Me

This post was originally posted on the Vaguely Circular blog. I have only posted a portion here and the rest is linked to at the end.

I Love TheeAs of this writing, I am in the middle of NaNoWriMo. It is November 15th and I have learned a lot about myself the last 15 days. First, I should tell you some background. This is my first year doing NaNo. I’ve always wanted to do it, but always came up with excuses. Mainly because there are three family birthdays, Thanksgiving, and other various things, not to mention my part-time job to contend with.

But I kept hearing friends of mine talk about how they are doing NaNo despite working three jobs or doing in despite all the excuses they could use. So, I decided to try it. My main goal was to rewrite one short story which would be less than 20,000 words and at least get a good start on finishing another short story I started a while back. Both of them are now finished. The short story rewrite is 16,512 words and the other short story is 15,029 (I didn’t write all of that during NaNo). My total word count as of this writing is 30,968.

Originally, I was going to be happy if I finished those two short stories by the end of November. Now, my goal has changed to reaching 50,000 and getting started on my next novel. Continue Reading…

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November

In a normal year (if there is such a thing), November is a crazy month for me. There are three family birthdays, chicken butchering at my uncle’s, Thanksgiving, plus all the normal, day-to-day and week-to-week things. This year I decided to be even a little more crazy. I’m doing NaNoWriMo, kind of.

For those who don’t know, NaNo is short for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days or less. I went into it knowing that I would most likely not get to the 50,000 words, but my goal is to try to write at least a few words every day of the month and write as much as I can. I’m also splitting the 50,000 words up between at least two stories.

My projects

Project #1:

The first project I am working on, is called When Roses Bloom Again. Here is a book cover mock up I made to help with a little motivation. Continue reading