Are You Up for a November Writing Challenge?
Are You Up for a November Writing Challenge?.
If you can fulfill all your duties as an American mother and still manage to participate and complete NaNoWriMo, I declare…
The above is a reblog of SweetMother’s NaNoWriMo challenge post. Definitely have a look-see. As for me, I find NaNoWriMo falls at the absolute worst time of the year for a mother who lives in America. It falls at the tail end of October, which is always a wickedly busy month with school Fall Festival, Fall Break, Halloween, and, in my particular life, a very important cousin’s birthday weekend. Then in November we have the ramp up to Thanksgiving and Christmas, which, for a mother in America, is a pretty darn hectic time. So, ever since my daughter was born, I haven’t even bothered thinking about NaNoWriMo.
My life every October through December.
But ten years ago I took the NaNoWriMo challenge and I got about 50,000 words towards my first novel. The very same novel that I’m still working on the fourth draft of and intend to have finished and on its way out into the world by this time next year. In the meantime, I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of other stories and other books. But this one has a piece of my heart and it won’t let me go until I set let it fly–however lopsided its trajectory might end up being.
With that in mind, perhaps I will continue with my regular writerly self-flagellation by deeming November to be my own personal NaNoWIPMo–National Novemember Work In Progress Month. I’m waffling between nailing down a sturdy outline of another WIP and trying to write something like 1,000 words of it a day throughout November. (Ahahaha!) Or saying that I am going to finish up the rewrites of the third fairy tale book. Or saying that this is it, time to commit myself to that first novel again, and get that sucker ready to go. Or maybe I should just recognize my limitations, be realistic, and admit what I said in the opening paragraphs–November is a terrible month to attempt anything like this as an American mother (who works outside of the home, has a second job writing books, and attempts to be a good wife, mother, friend, sister, daughter, and human being).
Oh, and did I mention that I started a short story today that would fit a submission call that ends October 26th just perfectly? I’m putting that one into the hands of fate. If I get it done in time, so be it. If I don’t, so be it. If I do and it gets rejected, so be it. May the story gods be with me in whatever outcome is best.
Are you planning on doing NaNoWriMo? If so, what’s your plan? And if not, why not? Feel free to join me for NaNoWIPMo, too. It’s got no rules, as you can see, aside from “run hard at those WIPs and try to get ‘em done”.
