Updates / NaNo 2021

It’s funny to be here, once again talking about NaNoWriMo, which I haven’t discussed since 2019. NaNoWriMo, or, National Novel Writing Month, is a challenge which thousands of people tackle every November. The premise? Write 50,000 words in 30 days, or 1667 words a day. At the end of the month, boom, you’ve written yourself a novel.

I didn’t participate in NaNoWriMo last year, due to university and my work schedule. I was focused on writing poetry and short stories anyway – the poetry for my emotions, the short stories for my classes. (You can actually read the short story I drafted last November here, or the process I took in writing it here.)

I do have uni again this month, so most of my energy is spent writing essays, but I have actually signed up to do NaNoWriMo anyway.

While I’m not expecting to write nearly enough words to have a finished novel by the end of the month, it has been good to revisit a novel idea I began earlier in the year but never wrote much of. While I’m not participating fully, and I don’t even know if the idea I’m working on is enough to be a full-length novel, there is something to be said for the discipline in writing every day. It’s reminiscent of when I first started this blog, and chose to post something every day, even when I was busy or tired or not feeling very creative.

Who knows what I’ll achieve by the end of the month. An essay, at least, for uni. Numerous blog posts. A newsletter (sent out tomorrow!). And some musings for a novel that may not become a novel.

They all sound like pretty great things to me.

Sarah xx