Can you believe that NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow? (In Australia at least.) I’ve been watching the calendar like a hawk for the past two months, scheduling my writing time to make sure I’m as prepared as can be, counting down the days to November first, and it still feels like naNo has somehow managed to creep up on me. now that we are standing on the edge of beginning, I could not be more excited to leave the planning behind, and jump into this marathon writing month alongside so many other motivated writers.
This year is going to be a bit more of a challenge for me. Unlike previous years where I was either studying (uni by distance, which let me set my own daily schedule pretty much), or just writing, this year I’ll be attempting to balance novelling with my part time cafe job. I am still determined to write and win, and come out of November with a good draft of a book ready to edit in the new year. But making writing a priority this year is going to be a little more complicated, that’s all.
Something I’ve done differently into the lead up for this NaNoWriMo is actually plan my book out. Usually I am a hardcore pantser who loves nothing better than to dive into a story with exactly three minutes of preparation. This book isn’t letting me do that. This one is staring off into the distance with its arms folded waiting for me to get my act together and write a proper outline. I will say though, that outlining this book has made me even more excited to get to writing it properly as I’ve seen the plot taking shape.
The book I’m writing for this NaNoWriMo is the sequel to my recently published YA fantasy, ‘The Crystal Tree’. I’ve written a couple of sequels before (none of which have yet seen the light of day yet, thankfully) but the experience of trying to write a sequel to something I’ve already published is going to be very different, I feel, and it’s something I’d love to actually write a whole blog post about because, while this is exciting, it’s also terrifying and I’m feeling a lot of pressure to get everything write at once. I’m hoping NaNo is going to get me past that feeling and back to enjoying writing a messy first draft again.
One really cool thing about this year’s NaNo, is that I’m actually planning to meetup with some other NaNoers in real life. The people in my home region are SUPER friendly and awesome, and, after a couple of years of thinking about it, this year I’m going to take the plunge and head out to a couple of IRL write-ins. I am going to meet with these other cool writers and we’re all going to be awesome together, just you watch.
This NaNoWriMo is shaping up to be different, and fun, and hopefuly, enormously productive for me as well. As far as writing goes, November is pretty much my favourite month of the year, and I cannot wait to jump into the writing, the excitement, and the heady rush of creation once more. But I’d love to know, what are you most excited for this NaNo? What will you be working on? If you’re not NaNoing, have you ever tried one in the past? Would you be interested in trying it in the future? Let’s chat!
