NaNo Decision

(Sidenote: I had all this recorded, but my weekend’s been a little crazy so I haven’t had a chance to edit and upload it. I figured it would be fatster to just type this.)

It’s almost November, the time of year when writers go crazy (well, crazier than usual).

National Novel Writing Month.

We writers shorten it to NaNoWriMo (or just plain NaNo). You might recall that two years ago, I participated in NaNo for the first time. I managed to hit the 50,000 word mark that year (though I didn’t finish the manuscript until later) and I couldn’t believe how well the process worked. I had been working on that manuscript (both planning and writing) for almost two years and in the space of two or three months, I had a completed manuscript. I had never finished a book  before (despite having more ideas than I know what to do with) and I was so excited after I finished NaNo.

Last year I thought about doing it again, but I was in my last semester of school, had started applying for jobs, and was more than a little worried about what I’d be doing after I graduated in December.

All this month, I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I wanted to participate in NaNo this year. For the most part, I was thinking that if I did do it, I’d use it more for accountability than finishing a book in a month. But then I found a solution.

A few days ago a friend of mine from school posted a link that really interested me. An online publication is accepting unsolicited manuscripts for fantasy and sci-fi novellas for the next three months. This got me pretty excited.

Now, the site has a few stipulations for submission. The novella must be between 20,000 and 40,000 words. It can’t be previously published anywhere else. And if it’s set in a fictional country, they prefer countries not based on European countries.

So that really caught my attention. And my decision was made.

I’ve decided to participate in NaNo this year. I’ll be writing a novella of an undetermined length, so I’m less worried about word count than I am about finishing the whole story in one month. For a rough premise (as in, I came up with it in the last 24 hours), I’ll be doing an adaptation of The Little Mermaid, set in a southern Asian- inspired country (mostly India, I think).

Don’t worry, I’ll still be doing my best to blog and make videos to keep you all updated, but there might be weeks I miss or post late because of frenzied work on this novella.

So, are any of you writers going to do NaNo this year?

Wish me luck!

Until next time, word nerds.