It’s my favorite month: NaNoWriMo!
November is National Novel Writing Month, when writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word story, start to finish, in the 30 days of November. While it’s a personal challenge, it’s pretty famous and there’s a nonprofit organization at https://nanowrimo.org/ that can help you track your progress and link you up with your writing buddies.
(If you’re participating in NaNo this year, you can find me under “Danaluki” if you’d like another writing buddy.)
I first participated in NaNoWriMo almost a decade ago, back when I considered myself primarily an artist. The challenge pushed me to complete a longform fiction project for the first time. While I’m trying to get better at creating detailed outlines, I’m still a discovery writer (aka pantser) to a degree. I enjoy the process of fast-drafting a story, letting it be messy, and simply fixing what needs to be fixed afterward. It’s incredibly satisfying to go from “Once upon a time” all the way to “The end” in a single month.
That being said, this November finds me about 70k into book two of the Worldwalker series, and I don’t want to put the draft aside to start a fresh story for NaNoWriMo. For the first time, I’ll try to hit my 1667 word goal while finishing up this book and then start book three once I’m done.
I’m looking forward to completing the arc of Kate and Cor’s adventures as well as hitting my annual 50k. Best wishes to any of you out there participating!
Dana Ardis 