November is for Noveling

Your Invitation to Write (Yes, You!)

If you haven't heard of NaNoWriMo it is short for November is National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 1,667 words a day and end up with a 50,000 word first draft by the end of the month. (You can also go full NaNo Rebel and change the word count or work on a different project.)

I've been participating on and off since high school and love it for moving past perfectionism and quarantining my inner critic.

Here’s what I wrote about NaNo on my blog last year…

Growing up I would write a novel every year for NaNoWriMo. Somehow I even managed to crank out 50,000 words during grad school. But that NaNo, 10 years ago, was my last.

Somehow after graduating and becoming “an adult” I’ve had an impossibly hard time with fiction. I suddenly felt like writing was a waste of time unless I was “good enough” to be traditionally published.

But I’ve been chipping away at my addiction to perfection and thanks to the incredible modeling of my creative coach Amie McNee I am going back to my roots. I’m writing a story this month that I’m really excited about. Just to play.

When it’s done, if I want to share it, I’m prepared to choose myself. The gatekeepers aren’t even invited to the party. My new fiction goal - whether with this story or another - is to self publish. But first, a messy first draft. Because mess is magic. ✨

Reader, I did it.

I wrote 50,000 words of a very messy novel. And it sat on my hard drive for a year while I finished publishing Discover Your Creative Ecosystem. Tomorrow I’m returning to my fiction story. I’m going to start from scratch and take the same story seed in a different direction. I’ve been ruminating on it for twelve months now and have some exciting ideas!

I’m not sure if I’ll reach 50,000 words. Davy’s not in school and I doubt I’ll have much solo studio writing time. Plus our first trip to see extended family since COVID times. But…

As I recently shared on Instagram,

Every word we write is one we didn’t have before.

Next week I’m diving into my story idea with paid subscribers.

I’m going deep and sharing the heart of the story I want to write and why I’ve decided to take my time writing it.

Happy Noveling,

Sarah