#NaNoWriMo2020

Hey folks, my apologies. I know that I said I would post the next chapter last weekend. But I discovered that there was another a chapter that needed to be written and posted first.

I am about half way through that one. We are going back to East Texas and checking in on Chad, Rose, and Grace. See how they are getting along. Then I can edit and post that chapter in Ready to Run.

The pace is picking up now. And #NaNoWriMo is one reason. If you don’t know what that is, November is National Novel Writing Month. What began as an American thing has become international. The basic premise is show people that they can write that novel they have always dreamt of. In one month. Thirty-days. That works out to 1,667 words per day.

I have been participating for about ten years now. I cannot say exactly how long because while my official NaNo profile says eight, I used a different name and email the first year or two.

My NaNo story has been one of struggles. I have ‘won’ less than half the time. And even when I ‘win,’ I have yet to complete a project/novel. Yet it has been so instrumental in my development as a storyteller.

The first time, I participated with my eldest daughter Precious. I was writing an modern take on Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. About a week or ten days into it, @PanKwake dropped my laptop and the screen shattered. I could not see enough to recover that file. I never did. Instead I lived that one out as my marriage disintergrated.

I think I skipped a year or two before coming back in 2011 with Sergeant Mike’s Miracle Tour. I am not sure which one it was. Both My Country Tis of Thee and Labor’s End are ‘failed’ NaNo projects. Ironically, both to the same milady – technical troubles. I lost the files to both. The first one about twelve thousand words in and the second much higher. No, I could never recover those files either. See a pattern emerging here? But I did not give up on either. I started from scratch and am proud of both stories.

Of course, I was so discouraged that I skipped another year. But when I came back in 2013, I was determined. I was going to finish. And I was not risking losing my work again. To make sure, not only did I back up my work to disc (I had tried that with Sergeant Mike, too) but I also posted it to Lit – daily. I wrote over 63K words in Priestesses of the Goddess that year. So, yes, I won the badge for writing 50K words in the month of November. But I did not, and still have not, finish that novel, probably a trilogy.

But it gave me a taste for ‘victory.’ My overall results are not as dismal as they appear in my profile. Last year, #NaNoWriMo switched software. While they said nothing would be lost, I swear some of mine have been.

Of course, NaNo is so popular that it has expanded. Now, there are CampNaNo in April and July. I love those even more because you have the freedom to set your own goal including counting edited words. I usually do much better with those.

So, three days in, how am I doing? Not too badly. That first day, I wrote exactly 1,667 words in this chapter of Tight Fittin’ Jeans. I find that ironic and a bit poetic that somehow I managed to write the precise daily goal to finish. Yesterday, I did a bit better – 1,966. Today? Well, I have not written yet. So we shall have to wait to see.

Instead, I decided to do this catch with ya’ll. And to encourage any of you, who like me once dreamed of writing a book, it’s not too late. You can still make up those words. There is plenty of time – to live your dream. It’s one of the ways I got started. After all…

Okay, I better get off here now and start ‘real’ writing. Petulant teens with rainbow hair are just so much fun…

Goddess bless, protect, and keep you all,
Tara