On the first Wednesday of every month, members of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (open to anyone and full of great resources and information for writers) post their answers to a monthly prompt on their blogs.
Authors benefit from getting an insightful prompt for generating more blog content, and IWSG links all respondents, which is a way for writers to discover each other. Pretty neat!
November 1 question: November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?
I have indeed participated! According to my NaNoWriMo account, I have made 11 attempts at either NaNo or its summer cousin, Camp NaNo, and succeeded once: ending with a complete Draft Zero novel in 2014. Even that was a bit of a stretch, because I only managed 40,000 words, not 50,000… but the overall effort I count as a success, because that draft resulted in my first (and only) published novel, Red Soil Through Our Fingers!
Despite my low “win” rate (9%), I am a big believer in the power of NaNo. Even the ten times I started a project and didn’t technically meet the objective (50,000 words in 30 days), the benefits of simply giving it a shot were numerous. I explored ideas, bonded with friends, and generated prose – most of which was shit, and not immediately useful for anything, but decent chunks of it got recycled into other stories. All writing is compostable, and even what never gets used is not a waste.
I will not be making an official attempt this year, as I currently have a two-week-old infant. However! In the late night hours when I’m “on duty” but baby is sleeping, I have been making a few pages of progress here and there on my Longhand Project, which has been low-key resurrected… as always, “we’ll see” if it gets anywhere.
Oof writing with an infant is a challenge in itself. Been there. Write when you can and enjoy the baby. They grow up fast. The writing will always be there. 🙂
I love this: “All writing is compostable, and even what never gets used is not a waste.” So very true and is the heart of what I tell anyone who is considering giving Nanowrimo a try.
Congrats on the little one! Don’t forget to take time to sleep yourself. You need the rest.
All writing is compostable – I like that!
I won once and came close the second time, but both were wins for me as I did complete the stories and both became published books.