Originally I’d decided, since I was mid-novel, that I was going to skip NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve done it every year since 2008 (for the record, I won in 2008 (but never finished the novel), failed by about 7k in 2009, and failed spectacularly in 2010 (but in my defense, my grandfather passed away mid-November so that derailed my efforts)).
For those unaware, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, an annual challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It’s a wonderful challenge and forces you to write quickly and turn off the inner editor, which for me at least is the hardest thing to overcome. I tend to start second guessing myself midstream and end up having trouble.
So like I said, I was going to skip it this year since I was already in the middle of a novel. But instead I decided I’ll try to finish this novel during the month, then to step away from it and gain proper distance before revision I’ll spend the rest of the month working on a piece of literary fiction I’d started before the current science fiction idea took over my creative energies. Maybe I can finish both, that’d be fun.
To all the other NaNoers, I say good luck!
