NaNoWriMo Blues

 “Finish things.” - Neil Gaiman 

I’ve been participating in National Novel Writing Month since 2018. I have yet to complete a novel, but the challenge has helped me to finish first drafts of short stories. The only times that I’ve “won” is with July and April’s Camp NaNoWriMo which lets you set your own word count. 

With all the controversy surrounding NaNoWriMo recently and the fact that none of my writing buddies are participating this time, I debated whether to participate this year. 

One of the things I struggle with is finishing things. I have too many partially completed stories. When I looked at my previous NaNoWriMo projects, I saw that my total word count was around 78,000. So, after some reflection I decided to jump in with the following goals:

• Get into the habit of writing regularly again. 

• Increase my total word count to over 80,000 words.

• Title my project “Short Story Roundup” and work on completing some stories.

So naturally I started a new short story. Sigh. 

Even without writing buddies for motivation, I’ve been enjoying working on the story though. I’ve also gotten back into the habit of writing regularly, even when I’m not in the mood and even if the word count is low. Progress is progress. I’ve also broken 80,000 words, so there’s that. 

There are still a few days left in the month, so my goal now is to finish the story. After that my goals are to keep up the habit of writing regularly past November as well as working harder to follow Neil Gaiman's advice to beginner writers, which I quoted above.