NaNoWriMo 2018

This year I’m participating in NaNoWriMo and I am feeling all kinds of emotions about it!

Each year, National Novel Writing Month participants try to complete a 50,000 word novella in November. It means you’ve got one month to create a first draft of something to polish and sculpt at your leisure after the month is over.

This is my third attempt at completing all 50,000 words. I’ve never ‘won’, but the first drafts of my novella and novel in progress started out this way, and I always have a kind of stressful, anxious, highly-caffeinated fun with it.

One reason I like to participate is because I always hope the process of writing a draft so quickly will shake me out of my usual writing patterns. I’m a perfectionist who often gets bogged down in writing half a novel and then editing it obsessively until it’s perfect – the point of NaNoWriMo is that it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be done. ‘Good’ can always come later.

This year, the working title of my novella is Snow and Sage Solve a Murder (I’m obviously going to have to think of a new one). It’s about two married femme trans people who try to find a serial killer in their community. It’s quite different from anything I’ve written before, but I’m looking forward to experimenting and seeing where things go.

Best of luck to anyone who’s participating, high fives to anyone who’s taking this year off, and I’ll let you all know what happens!