I’m ready for NaNo! Perfect timing to start a new page in my weekly writing log- I gave it a header to show that this month I’ll be switching from book 1 (Colorweaver) to book 2 (Sentinel) as soon as I wrap up the last few chapters of 1. My daily NaNo log is all pretty and ready to go, too!

I’m excited about NaNo because I should hopefully have more time this year and might even win. It’s been years since I won! But I’ll tell you a secret: even when I win, I’m a rebel. I never aim to write a new book in a month. I do try to hit 50k (and consider that a win) but word count is the only traditional thing I do. Most years are rewrites, or I’m doing multiple projects within the series in the month, or I’m world building alongside writing the book. And I consider that absolutely a valid way to do NaNo. It takes me the better part of a year to finish a novel draft, so it’s certainly not going to happen in a month; I’d rather have a coherent draft than a mess I churned out just for word count and a “the end.” I use NaNo for the community and motivation and to get a huge chunk of a project done. For me, that’s the point of NaNo.

This year I’m going to be finishing the tail end of the 2nd draft of the first book alongside writing the 3rd draft/rewrite of book 2. I’ll likely throw some world building time in there, too, because I usually do. And I’ll be writing a bunch- if not all- of this by hand, so word count is going to be an iffy thing that’s likely going to be lower than if I tried on the laptop like previous years. It’s not traditional NaNo, but this is the way I write best and the way I love to write. 50k will be my “win,” but no matter what I get, I’ll consider it a success because I wrote words. Words, no matter the amount, are always a win!

~Meri