Get involved! Get writing!
I’ve been on a two-month hiatus from writing my fiction – life and work getting in the way as they always seem to do…
However, as November approaches, there’s a very good reason to get back into fiction writing – one that many writers find is just what they need to jump start their creative endeavours, as the cold weather settles in: NaNoWriMo!
Writing is a uniquely lonely type of thing. For an introvert (like myself!) it is a welcome escape from the invasive outside world. It’s therapeutic, too – a balm to soothe the raw stress from all those… people (said with the utmost disgust) intruding themselves upon me day in, day out.
However, I have found that the private nature of writing is a double-edged sword. There are times when even this introvert (I cringe to admit) craves contact with other like-minded humans. Specifically the writing kind of humans.
Now, writing being an activity whereby you are lost in your mind and you stare intently at a screen for hours on end, contact with other such beings can be hard to come by… unless you all share a similar goal. Say, the writing of a complete novel in the space of one month.
Well, look no further: National Novel Writing Month has you covered! In fact, they couldn’t make it easier for you to get involved – to whatever degree you feel comfortable with. You fill out some information on yourself and your prospective novel, you pick the local community you’ll be writing with, and once November rolls around, you start writing! There’s a nifty little graph that shows you how much you’ve written, and if you are on (or off) your word count goal. There are weekly activities, both locally and across the world that you (again) can participate in, or not.
This will be my third year participating, though I’ll immediately admit I’ll be cheating just a bit – I’m aiming to complete the same novel that I started last year (an urban sci-fi mystery… thingy) – however many words that ends up being.
Regardless of my insidious plans, NaNoWriMo is just what I need to get my fiction writing kick-started again.
21 days and counting…
…in the meantime? I’ll be getting another batch of agent queries out, and outlining the next bits of that novel that is going to write itself! 😉