This is my third NaNoWriMo event. For those of you who don’t know what NaNo is, it is National Novel Writing Month challenge. The month of November celebrates the novel. Writers from all over the world get together via the internet and local groups, to write fifty thousand words in thirty days. (If you are a writer and you’ve not heard of NaNoWriMo go to https://nanowrimo.org and check out their website.)

In order to make the fifty thousand-word goal, writers need to compose 1667 words per day. After the first week of NaNo I have only 6013 which only averages out to 859 words per day, about half of my projected goal.

My first year of doing NaNo I wrote Titanium Blue before Thanksgiving. I tried NaNo, the first time, to prove I could do it. As a new writer who dreamed of being traditionally published, I needed to know I could produce work within a limited time frame. Since choosing to become an indie author, it is even more important to write, edit and publish quickly. My goal has been to publish at least three books a year. Since publishing my first novel, Chrome Pink, three years ago, I’ve published six books and I’m working on number 7. I’ve not quite reached my 3-book goal but two and half isn’t too bad.

For many of us this year has been exceptionally difficult. Red Steel came out just as the world was shutting down and Janie’s Secrets came out in the middle of the pandemic, I’m not sure if it was depression or just pure exhaustion that has made writing more difficult the past few months. Even though I might be failing at NaNo, I’m writing regularly and seeing results.

To my fellow writers who are doing NaNo whether you are on goal or not, you are winning because you are working. Each step forward is closer to the finish line.