NaNo 2010

Getting very close to November... I don't think I ever blogged about NaNo last year, but I had a great time participating last year and decided to do so again this year. Last year I wrote some 55k words on a sequel to my earlier serial fiction project, which is currently out on submission. So hopefully both the original and the NaNo sequel will turn into something people have a chance to read. What I didn't do at all last year was make it to any of the in-person events. And...I don't know if I will this year either, but I'd like to, if possible.

This year I'm working on a new novel, but one that's been bouncing around my head for well over a year--I'd actually considered doing it for NaNo last year before changing to the serial project. Even with all that time to let images and ideas simmer, I don't feel I know the characters nearly as well as I knew the characters last year--so it'll be much more a journey of discovery as I go this time around. There's a challenge to that I like, but a danger as well that I freeze up or lost confidence in what I'm writing.

I'm also not rearranging my life to do NaNo. I want to show myself I can do this while doing all the other things expected of me and other things I want to do. I'm sure some things will get pushed back to December or whatever, but for the most I'm committing myself to maintaining a clean house, doing the yard work, all the other work I need to do. And I've increased my activity level a lot over the past two months (having my son in kindergarten means it's so much easier to go running when I can just plop my daughter in the jogging stroller, rather than trying to have my son bike along next to me as I push the stroller). I need to make sure I continue that as well.

If you think about it, it shouldn't be that hard. Not even two thousand words a day? It requires discipline, of course. But as long as I can keep myself from getting distracted, it should be eminently do-able. (Check back to see if I still think that in a week or two...) I'm not a feast-and-famine kind of writer usually, so I'll be much better off if I can establish that kind of pace from the beginning, rather than trying for 5k one day and nothing the next. That said, this year has been mostly famine in terms of writing new fiction--I've been focusing on a ton of rewriting, editing, and revising. So hopefully that means I'll be rearing to go, come...a few hours from now, rather than it meaning I'm too rusty to stay focussed.

Well all I can say now is, we'll see. I'll probably not have the weekly short fiction posts (though maybe I'll have time to read some), but while I won't bore you with the minutiae of how the novel is going, I'll have some posts related to NaNo in the weeks ahead.