NaNoWriMo and Word Counts
Many of you may have heard about NaNoWriMo, the abbreviated form of National Novel Writing Month. Its designated month is the month of November, in spite of its horrible timing with the holiday season wherein we sprint from All Hallow's Eve through Thanksgiving and into winter seasonal shopping, (insert title of whatever holiday you celebrate here.)
I've not ever officially participated in NaNoWriMo. It seems stressful to be expected a specific word count every day and to reach the anticipated 50,000 words in a 30-day stretch.
I also know that my life wouldn't allow that.
As a college instructor, our schedule is planned out for us, and roughly weeks ten through fourteen of a fifteen-week semester routinely fall in the month of November. This is crunch time not only for my students, but for me as well as I assign and grade major projects and push the students through the rest of their semester.
That being said, I have been motivated by ELEMENTAL ALLIANCE being accepted for publication and have made some progress with ELEMENTAL BLOODLINES. While adding another 50,000 words during the month of November would have almost completed the manuscript, there really is no way for me to find that kind of time during this busy month. Instead, ELEMENTAL BLOODLINES started November near the 38,000 word mark and will near the 50,000 word mark towards month's end. So while 50,000 new words were not added, the manuscript will still match that proverbial magical word marker that makes November so special in the writing world. Just don't ask me to finish the second half by the end of December, January maybe, February likely, but not December.