The beginning of November brings two major things in my writing life: NaNoWriMo, the yearly challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, and the #PitchWars agent round. Since I’m doing my best to REMAIN CALM, DAMN IT regarding the latter… here’s a lot of gifs about the former.
The word of the month is PANIC. My idea for this NaNoWriMo has been brewing in my head for months, and I assure you—it is SO FUN. Bad ass ladies kicking ass in space. Kind of my MO. But, very early on the idea divided itself into two separate ideas. Same core concept, but two drastically different executions. I decided on one. Then I decided on the other. Then, two days ago, I decided to smash their faces together and do both. Now, 4000 words into my NaNo draft… I’ve changed my mind. Again.
I’m normally a fairly serious plotter, so having this degree of uncertainty is definitely panic-inducing for me. If I’ve learned anything over the past two years, though, it’s that every book demands to be written differently. I may have a general process that works for me, but no writing experience will be exactly the same from book to book. And that’s fine. This one is just… a new challenge. Yes. Let’s go with that.
I’ve also mentioned before that I’m one of the NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaisons for my region, so I’ve been doing my best to keep our South Jersey ship running smoothly along with fellow South Jersey writers Krista Magrowski and Lisen Minetti. Our kickoff party and day one write in was yesterday at the fabulous Casciano Coffee in Hammonton, NJ and we had a fabulous turnout of over thirty writers. I also had a great time designing a bunch of prize buttons for our region:
I enjoy the NaNoWriMo process for two main reasons: the community both online and off, and because hey, I’m a vomit-drafter anyway, so why not? My #PitchWars novel this year was last year’s NaNo novel, so to those who say nothing quality can come of NaNo, I say…
I promise I’ll actually post something about the #PitchWars experience very soon. I have a lot of warm, squishy feelings to share about it. But the agent round starts in a matter of HOURS so if you’ll excuse me I’m just going to go… drink tea and read fanfic, probably. Let’s be honest with each other.
Best of luck to all my fellow #PitchWars mentees!
