It’s November…

Yes, once again I am participating in “NaNoWriMo”. National Novel Writing Month is an annual event where tens of thousands of people sign-up to write 50,000 words in the month of November. For some people, it’s a really daunting goal. I must admit I’ve been participating for so many years now that it doesn’t really seem like a big deal. In fact, for veterans, there’s an option to double the amount, but I haven’t quite jumped on that commitment yet.

I’m not sure when or how it started, but suffice to say it’s a BIG THING among those of us who love to pound the keys! I’ve been participating for more than ten years now. My first project was in 2010 when I wrote the rough (very rough!) draft for THREE STRAND CORD. My profile page says I’ve written 511,033 words, which makes sense: 50,000 x 10.

TSC isn’t the only nano project to get polished into a ‘real’ novel. Out of the ten projects I’ve completed, six have made it to publication. So for me, NaNoWriMo is a pretty important part of my writing process. I’ve often told myself that I could apply the same principle (SIT DOWN AND WRITE!!) at any time of year, but there is something about Nano that spurs me past my own procrastination.

I just decided on my project yesterday and then prepped it on Scrivener (the software I use for writing.) I’m going to follow up with some characters from two of my other series; GOOD NEIGHBOURS will pick up from both NEIGHBOURS books, and THREE FOR THE ROAD is going to be about three minor characters from my THREE STRAND CORD series that I thought could use a little love–both from me and romantically! So rather than a novel, I will write several short stories. We’ll see how it goes… I was a bit apprehensive since I tried something similar one other year and didn’t succeed. 2016 was the only year I didn’t fulfill my goal, mostly because the inspiration wasn’t there.

Check out my nano history below.

My NaNoWriMo History

2010 – Three Strand Cord – published in 2018

2011 – Czech Out (not yet published)

2012 – Not of This World (not yet published)

2013 – Neighbours – 1^st edition published in 2014, 2^nd edition 2016

2014 – Whispering Winds – (not yet published)

2015 – Keeping Up With the Neighbours – published in 2017

2016 – Three Novellas – dropped the ball… 

2017 – Teaching Memoirs (Homeschool Reflections & Drama In the Boondocks) – (not yet published)

2018 – Blood Ties – published 2019

2019 – Tempest Tossed – published 2020

2020 – Alien Allies – became Aliens Among Us – published 2021