Getting Ready For NaNoWriMo

I’m back!

Alright, fair enough I never left, but I’m saying that because life’s been super busy recently.

I was on a roll this summer, reading books left and right and posting lots of awesome stuff on here. Then… life happened I guess. Since September, I haven’t really been reading much. Luckily, I’ve still been able to keep up with my drafting (in September) and my editing (in October), but I feel like I haven’t been able to sit down and enjoy a good book in ages.

Parts of that has been because I’ve been helping my wife with her book. She was commissioned to write a book about this sporting event thing, and OH MY GOD, it’s absolutely amazing. I’m not just saying that because I’ve read it 5 times the last 3 weeks (which has been slightly exhausting), it’s genuinely really awesome. It’s going to be published some time before Christmas and I can’t wait to see it in the flesh (paper flesh, that is).

I’ve also been prepping for NaNoWriMo next month. Well, I say prepping but truth is I don’t plot much so it’s more just of a mental preparation. Last year, I wrote a whole novella in a week (you can check that out here if you’re interested), and I plan to do something similar this year. Not that I’m planning on doing it so fast, but I realized that NaNo is perfect for novellas. The point is to write a 50k word draft in a month, which is perfect for novella-length things if you have a bit of discipline.

What I’m doing though, is rewriting a story I started ages ago. I don’t know why I stopped it, I think I kinda just… forgot about it, but I’m ready to pick it back up, and it’s going to be amazing! Now that I’m planning on writing a novella instead of a novel, I’m much more prepared to finish it. I know what I need to. The first of which, is to rewrite the parts I’ve already written from third to first person. Yeah, you heard me, FIRST PERSON! I’ve never done that before, but I think it will be perfect for this story.

My mom is coming to visit next weekend, so I won’t be starting until the 5th of November. Then I’ll probably just spend the first few days reading through what I have from when I started. I need to gauge how much I can use in this rewrite and how much I need to just trash (it’s been a few years since I started, I bet much of it is awful). But then I’ll be ready to have at it. And I’m super excited!

Are you doing NaNo this year? What are you working on?

I used to not see the appeal. I didn’t really get the point with doing a special project for just one month. But I’m totally convinced. It’s a perfect opportunity to cleanse your palate and just work on something else, and in my case, write a novella that’s been bouncing around for a while. It’s going to be awesome!