So long, and thanks for all the coffee.

Today’s update is a brief check-in about what blogging in November is like when you are participating in National Novel Writing Month. For me, it means not much blogging.

I did set aside time and words for some posts earlier this month that were on my creative backburner for far too long, but now we are more than halfway through November, and am lagging behind in the expectation to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month. So, some of the blogs I was working on will have to wait a little longer to reach fruition.

To be fair, Nano is an arbitrary thing. I don’t have to write 50,000 words in one month to be a writer. I do write that much in a month anyway, if you count stuff that will never be published or business writing for my job. As well, if this here blog was something that had real deadlines, not ones that I make up and hope to hit (much like throwing darts), or if I was doing this professionally, I would of course reshuffle my priorities accordingly.

As it is, I want to hit the Nano goal this year, because even though it is arbitrary, even though the manuscript it involves will be nowhere near complete at 50,000 words, I still like the challenge. I like having something that keeps me accountable, to say, “hey, why haven’t you written anything today?” The community around it is nice too, as we authors motivate each other with our updates and give advice when we’re stuck. I do think it is a bad idea for a brand new or novice writer to jump right into NaNoWriMo, as it can be daunting, enough to make you never want to write again, because getting to the point of being able to churn out more than a thousand words a day is not easy. Having the shit you write end up as something coherent enough to be called a story is even more of a challenge.

To all of those participating in this with me, I salute you. To those who feel like they are failing it or are scared to write, don’t let the signpost of 50,000 words deter you from following the creative path that works for you.

FIN