Do You Nano?

It is that time of year again, NANOWRIMO is off and running. I was too busy to even think about it this year, so I am just wondering, do you NANO? If so, why? If not, why not join in on the insane writing fun?

I am not going to NANO this year because I have a bunch of writing to keep me busy already this month, including work on Mars Station One for my 3D mission to Mars project at Mars Station One, and being behind on a novel I am working on with a fried, and lots of work I need to catch up on in my copywriter job that is suffering from lack of time to actually work on things. It seems like between the flu and winter settling in around me I have had no time for anything lately. So definitely no NANO for me this month.

How about you?

NaNoWriMo is over

Well, here we are. November 30th 2008 and NaNoWriMo is officially over for 2008. I dropped the effort at about a week in, well, no, it was actually about three days in when I decided I was not going to be able to do everything else I had to do and work on NaNoWriMo at the same time. There was just far too much to do last month for me to work on another writing project *just* for writing it. I focused instead on writing stuff that earned me an income.

National No Novel Writing Month

How about a NaNoNoWriMo? National No Novel Writing Month? If you think about it, November is one of the most insane months to be thinking novel anyway, which I guess is the point, if you can survive writing a novel in November then you can do it at any time - but I think that it was more a matter of November being the month with N-o-v-e in it, which made the month just too awww cute to pass up as Novel writing month.

Think about what else there is to be done in this month, though. For most people we have Thanksgiving, school and getting ready for Christmas.

My month includes...

A writing course I can't work on at the moment
Thanksgiving - which I pretty much blew off this year
Getting shopping in for Christmas
National Family Caregiver Month
National Alzheimer's Awareness Month

And then there is my normal work schedule.

Who has time to write 50,000 words that are just throwaway junk words? I would rather write 500 keepers than 50,000 junk words. So, instead of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I am celebrating National No Novel Writing Month (NaNoNoWriMo). Anyone else with me on this?

NaNoWriMo

I have already decided that I am not going to finish NaNoWriMo this year, but I am not very worried about it. For me, NaNoWriMo is not something that I need to have a "I won!" badge for to be a writer - it never has been. For me, NaNoWriMo is just a distraction on a grander scale than the average writing meemee or quiz on writing.

So, while others all across the world are diligently writing away headed for the goal of 50,000 words so they can earn a badge made up of pixels, I am diligently writing away on work that will earn me cash that I can use to help pay off the mortgage on my parents' house.

NaNoWriMo commeth

NaNoWriMo approaches, so I have decided that since my goal is to write the rough draft for the sequel to Heir to Magic I must spend the next month and a half finishing off the first draft of Heir To Magic so I have a better idea for what direction to take the sequel in.

So, I am giving myself to midnight on October 31 to write the last word in the first draft of Heir to Magic, then I will start on the sequel.