NANOWRIMO IS HERE

National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo is upon us. And this year, I will finish this novel!

So, for those of you who are still following me and those of you who are new to the site, I am an Adjunct Instructor for North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Forsyth Technical Community College. So, I am a very busy woman. But I am first and foremost a writer. Yet it’s hard to call myself a writer, when I haven’t been writing. Unless you count writing lesson plans and feedback on students’ assignments, then I am writer of the year.

But I digress. I have said once upon a time before that I wanted to have a novel finished by my birthday, which is in May. However, I have changed jobs and finished a degree, and it seems to take my months to a year just to write a few chapters. Thus, this year, I am speaking it into existence. I will finish this novel before May 25, 2025, and then hopefully have it ready to publish before the holidays, or at the very least, January 2026.

With that being said, one, I need to decide which book to work on. I know Pamuya will take too long to complete and require a lot of research, even though it has the most chapters completed. Does That For You, the office rom-com I started last year, has five chapters completed but I have not thought out the whole novel from start to finish. And my untitled YA novel, it only has three chapters completed, however, I have mapped out the entire novel in Post-it notes. Therefore, that will be the novel I work on for NaNoWriMo.

Now that I have the novel decided, I need to work on the plan. I need to decide what is my word count goal for the month, and how much writing can I handle per day. That requires me to sit down and write out my entire schedule. I pretty much know what my schedule looks like as far as work, but not as far as free time. So much of my day is designed to make room for work and nothing else. One of my coworkers and friend literally texts me weekly to remind me to take a break. And she has informed me that eating or napping don’t count. I need to take time out of my schedule to just do something for me, to take care of me. So, if I can incorporate 30 minutes into my schedule and it does not overwhelm me, then I can find a way to incorporate writing into my schedule that won’t stress me out.

As always thanks for reading and happy writing to those doing NaNoWriMo.