Wednesday, November 2, 2022

 


Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. 

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The awesome co-hosts for the November 2 posting of the IWSG are Diedre Knight, Douglas Thomas Greening, Nick Wilford, and Diane Burton!


November 2 question - November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?

NaNoWriMo - have I ever participated? Hell yes. Many times. I don`t even know how many times. Let me think...well, at least four successfully - meaning I did my 50 thousand words in the month. Three of them went on to become completed novels - and one of them - The Crooked Knife was published this year. I started it in November of 2016.  One thing that I did with that one is make the novel start November 1st so I have to not do that again! Dead give away. 

I hope to get another one of the ones I wrote for the challenge published - that is Bright Angel. It has been looking for a home for awhile. Or rather I've been looking for it's home. It nearly found one last year but fate stepped in and the publisher stopped publishing - at least for awhile. NaNoWriMo is a great way to get a little fire going in your writing life. I'm pretty good at sticking to challenges that I've taken up. As a true pantser however, it means that at the end of the month I have fifty thousand words but a great need for revising. There is a strong community, but it isn't as good as this one (IWSG) is for me. There are many participants who are quite young and into epic fantasy writing - that being said - you can find your crew if you spend a bit of time. For me it is the buttons that work a magic. Entering my word count daily is such a boost. So when I've tried alternative ways to do the challenge it has not worked. 

Back many years there was a great alternative to NaNoWriMo that took place at a better time of year for many folks - that was BuNoWriMo - the Burrow Novel Writing Month in June. That was instigated in part by the terrific Tami Hart (Hart Johnson, Alyse Carlson and other aliases too many to mention) writer of the terrific blog Confessions of a Watery Tart and her intrepid writing group The Burrow (of which I was blessed to be included). 

So...do I recommend month long challenges? No, because I don't think everyone is the same as me. Pretty sure they aren't. I can only say they have worked for my particular sort of wiring and they might for you too. However many words you write you cannot fail at it though - if you weren't writing any words before. I have a second Nell Munro mystery that I'm writing - have forty thousand words. I might do the challenge but don't want fifty thousand more words - maybe I'll enter it with my goal to write another thirty thousand. That would work. And seventy thousand would give me a good solid first draft to completely re-write! 

See! Now I'm all excited. Yay for challenges. How about you? What makes your engine run? Your socks go up and down?

6 comments:

Liza said...

Good for you! I am so amazed at folks who stick to NaNo. I am a consistent writer but would not want to put that kind of pressure on myself. My first drafts are bad enough, I can't imagine what one would be like if I did it in a rush! Hope you are well, Jan.

Natalie Aguirre said...

That's great that NaNo has worked for you. I agree with Liza that it would feel like too much pressure for me to try it.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Excellent!
I also participated in BuNo years ago. I miss Hart.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

I miss Hart, too!

I'm halfway through a book now (as usual when Nov. rolls around), so I never officially participate, but I feed off the energy and do tend to write more!

Melissa Amateis said...

I haven't tried NaNo for a long time. November is usually a busy month, and I really think it would be much better for NaNo to be held in January of February when not much is going on, the holidays are over, and many people are deep in the grip of the winter months.

For me, I've decided to get back to blogging. I missed it, so I look forward to reading your posts again!

Aspeak said...
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