Halloween is just about over. The boys got a pretty good haul this year. I look forward to stealing Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from them...
Good things can come out of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it's commonly known. The goal is to write a 50k word novel all in the month of November. You win bragging rights if you reach your goal.
Most things written in the mad dash of NaNoWriMo aren't stellar, but they can become great. I wrote Wildfire last November. Well, most of it. I had written parts of it in The Program, Not My Magic, and Wildfire (the short story), maybe 10,000 words. I had 50,000-60,000 at the end of November. The other 25k or so words were written in April and finished up by June. I wrote the first book in the Lora Fletcher Chronicles (still working on the title) in November of 2014. I wrote a semi-autobiographical book in 2000 or 2001. Maybe it was 2002. I forget exactly, but that will probably never see the light of day. Even I don't want to read it, and I wrote it!!!!
Publishers hate NaNoWriMo. Or so I'm told. The influx of sub-par writing in December and January is said to be just awful. Perhaps that's why I dragged out my novel writing and editing for almost an entire year after the fact. Or two, if you consider poor Lora Fletcher, who no one but my oldest brother has met. A few others have met her best friend though. Man, I should get to editing that.
I like NaNo because it helps me focus. Gives me a goal. Keeps me accountable. Unfortunately, this year.... I doubt I'll be able to work on much. Between grading papers, the boys' activities, my activities, and trying to hang out with my husband, it hasn't left much time for writing. I do have some holiday time in November, but nowhere near enough to finish a 50k word novel. I have about 4500 words in the second novel in The Program. I'd like to come up for air over Thanksgiving though! But I will sign up. Maybe I'll surprise myself.
Maybe I'll surprise all of us!
