November Writing Goals

Today is All Souls Day, aka the first day of NaNoWriMo, where people endeavour to write 50,000 words in a month.

I’ve tried to do it a few times.

I always fail.

I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this month, but I do have some writing goals:

1. Finish the first draft of my WIP (I hit 50,000 words on it yesterday, so now I have a NaNo-length thing! I drafted it in about 2-3 months, though). It does have a working title, but on social media I’ve been referring to it as Bonkers Book. I reckon I have about 20-25k left before the first draft is finished.

2. Try not to freak out as Shadowplay reviews begin to trickle in, and also start ramping up marketing for its release in January. I’ll be working with the publicity people at Strange Chemistry to organise a blog tour. Perhaps write a couple of guest posts in advance, so I’m not absolutely overwhelmed closer to launch.

3. Send off an application to the Scottish Book Trust to be on their author database for Live Literature, to hopefully book more school visits. Nearly done!

So it’s not NaNoWriMo, but it’ll still be a productive month. Overall, I think NaNoWriMo is a great project for people who want to dip into writing. For me, however, the pace is not sustainable (I like to edit as I go, think and figure out a plot snarl rather than racing through it and then having to re-write it), and the stress on word count over anything else ends up kicking my anxiety into gear. I wrote 30k for NaNo last year, and I had to throw it out and start again. Twice. So I know enough about my working style by now to know that NaNoWriMo is not for me.

The community and support is great fun, and I plan to tap into that to help motivate me to finish my draft. I’ll go to some of the Aberdeen meets and maybe do word wars with people online.

What are your November writing goals?