Is ANYONE ready for NANOWRIMO? Because I'm not.

                         
Nanowrimo. November. The month of 50,000 words. Or maybe 8 words (*counts on fingers* It. was. a. dark. and. stormy. night. Yep, that's 8.) OR MAYBE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS. Or maybe 20,000 words. Maybe 2,000. We're going to just do our best okay?

Today I'm going to give you a gift. I'm going to give you the gift of the Super-Top-Secret-Making-This-Up-As-I-Go-Along-Nanowrimo-Success-Checklist.

READYSETGO

• Step One: Throw Away Your Writing Standards. Seriously. Toss them right now. Unless you're some sort of super-human, you are NOT going to write a complete, polished, plot-hole free novel in one month. You are not. The point of Nanowrimo is not to write a book that's ready to publish by December. The point of Nanowrimo is to write a Rough Draft. Emphasis on Rough. And to connect with other writers while you're at it. 
• Step Two: Connect with other writers while you're at it. Nanowrimo connects authors and aspiring authors together in a community of support, ideas, and general shenanigans. The community has always been the reason I do Nanowrimo. There are coffee shop write-ins, virtual write-ins, library write-ins, and unofficial Abby's-living-room write-ins all month long. There are chat rooms and prompts and pep talks and sprints all available on The Official Website. Lots of stuff to help you through. Also you should join my Super Top Secret and Exclusive Facebook Group.
• Step Three: Speaking of the Nanowrimo official website, use the official website. Update your wordcount, and watch your numbers climb on an automatically-generated graph. Let the website's algorithms let you know how you're doing. If you're ahead. If you're behind. How much you need to write any given day in order to finish on time. Oh and you can earn badges. It's brilliant. 
• Step Four: Purchase Swag. This step is not entirely necessary, but there's nothing like a shirt that says "I survived Nanowrimo 2019" to motivate you to survive Nanowrimo 2019. 
• Step Five: Either outline beforehand (you have less than a week left! *screaming*) or don't make yourself write the story in chronological order. This year will be the first that I attempt to work from a chronological outline. In the past I've found that the only way I can maintain pace is to write scenes as the ideas hit me, whether or not they're in order. I've spent many a December cutting and pasting and putting my chapters in order. Pro Tip: Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not attempt to number your chapters. You will invariably add one later and then have to renumber everything and it's............just don't do it, okay?
• Step Six: Give yourself a big coffee budget. 
• Step Seven: Hide your cell phone. No Distractions!!!
• Step Eight: Tie your husband/significant other/cat up, and put him in the closet. No Distractions!!!
• Step Nine: Alternatively remind your husband that the new Skyrim game is coming out on the 11th. "Absolutely babe, whatever you want, I just want You to be happy. Yeah can you just wear your headphones, and not yell too loud, thanks."
• Step Ten: Write every day. Even if it's just a little bit, make it a habit. You only have to do 1,667 words a day. They don't have to be good words. They don't have to be punctuated or spelled right or even entirely story. As long as you sit down and write, it can be a tirade about how you can't think of anything to write and everything you hate about your main character, and you Will Still Get Somewhere. A lot of writing, so I hear, is teasing out your thoughts and your imaginations and tackling the questions that knock about in your head. Nanowrimo is about putting all that nonsense on paper so you can See it and start to make something of it. 
• Step Eleven: Find some good writing music. I learn toward slow, nostalgic stuff like Sky Sailing, Fleurie, Handsome Ghost, and unnoffical playlists of every song on all eight seasons of The Vampire Diaries. Alternatively, find some good white noise. I recommend Rainy Cafe, which has rainstorm noises and cafe noises that you can adjust and mix together in whatever volume combination you like. I usually do Rain: 100%, Cafe: 50%, but you do you. 
• Step Twelve: Read. It might sound counter-intuitive to read when you're supposed to be writing, but reading books and writing books go hand in hand, and it's a much better place to go looking for story inspiration during Nanowrimo then Netflix or Hulu. My Nanowrimo Reading list? So glad you asked. 

                                          

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was originally a Nano novel, so I thought it'd be a perfect fit for this month. 

                                          

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is about an internet-famous fan-fiction author. So, perfect. 

                                          

And Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater, a spin-off of the Raven Boys Cycle, is about a boy who can pull things from his dreams and make them concrete, which is basically what writing is all about, right? I cannot tell you how ridiculously excited I am for this November 5th release!!!

                                           

Speaking of November 5th, November 5th is the English holiday, Guy Fawkes Day, in case you were a plebeian/peasant/American and didn't know.  In celebration I will be reading Fawkes by Nadine Brandes, burning a very small effigy of Guy Fawkes on my landlord's grill, and, naturally, writing a blog about it for your general enjoyment. You're welcome. 

And finally, I'll need to make time for the Booksplosion Book Club book of the month: 

                                          

Cursed by Frank Miller is a feminist twist on the Arthurian legends in the vein of "What if the Lady of the Lake drew Excalibur from the stone? It's also got illustrations, and it's going to be a Netflix series starring Katherine Langford, so that's exciting. 

And wow. I should really quit before this post devolves into a 200-item-long books-I-really-wanna-read-right-now list.

Are you doing Nano this year? Can I talk you into attempting Nano this year? Join my Facebook Group. Leave a Comment! Talk to you soon!

It's Fall. Read Spooky, Read Nostalgic, Prep for NaNoWriMo, and Drink Coffee.

                       

I am the sort of person who declares Spring while there's still snow on the ground. I am the sort of person who declares Winter the minute I see my first snowflake, and who declares Summer the day I feel like wearing a sundress, but Fall is different.

For me Fall is the season of all the feelings. All of the warm and still somehow achy colors. It's the season of the most cohesive and specific aesthetic, and all the various pieces of that aesthetic have to "fall" into place before I'm ready to welcome it. Pun Freaking Intended. It's the one season that hits me square between the eyes, usually when I'm driving down the road or out on a walk, and usually a week or two after the official start of Fall according to the Gregorian calendar.

                        

I welcomed Fall yesterday while driving down Mount Weather and across the Shenandoah River on my way home from work. I was listening to the audiobook of Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls (5 out of 5 stars). It was giving me all the nostalgic emotions about the very Fall-Vibey TV show we all know and love unless we're out of touch/monsters. I also couldn't help but notice that the air had that smell and that a quarter of the leaves were definitely changed.

Note: If you have never seen Gilmore Girls, I'm not actually calling you a monster. But I do Highly Recommend it. I'm starting a rewatch tomorrow and introducing my sister to the show. My sister is incidentally both out of touch and a monster, but that is neither here nor there. So if you'd like to join us (virtually. I'm not inviting you over to my house for seven season and a reboot), then you are very welcome. 

                                 

It's officially Fall. So it's Officially Time.

What's it Time For? I Will Tell You.

It's time for multiple trips to Barnes and Noble for chai lattes and hours wandering through the shelves telling yourself you're on the lookout for Christmas presents.

It's time to Never No Not Ever Apologize for loving pumpkin spice things and Starbucks and pumpkin spice things from Starbucks. More on this later.

It's time to get outside as much as possible. To hike, to read, or to drive with your windows down, take your pick.

It's time to prep for Nanowrimo and get around to some Fall Reading.
I'm here to help you with these latter two things (although if you'd like to visit Barnes and Noble with me or go hiking, or get a pumpkin spice thing, I'm really Always down, so just shoot me a text).

                         

Nanowrimo

For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as Nanowrimo, or if you want to be obnoxious: NaNoWriMo. It's a longstanding, worldwide challenge to write 50,000 words (a small novel) in one month, but it's more than that. Nanowrimo is a community. If you create a (free) account on their website, you can announce your project, chat with other participants about everything from character names to writer's block, read pep talks by Real Authors, find out about local writing meet-ups, and Most Importantly, track your progress.

There is Nothing that helps me keep pace better than watching my progress on the little automatically generated graph. That and comparing my progress to my little sister's automatically generated graph.

It turns out that writing 50,000 words in a month is Much more accessible that you might imagine. The trick is just to put words on paper in a steady steam without using your backspace button too much. The point of the challenge is to write a complete draft, not a perfect, ready-to-publish book.

In order to keep pace with the challenge, "all" you have to do is write 1667 words a day. Approximately. That's it! You can do that in a couple hours if you don't let yourself get bogged down in perfectionism, and it's a great excuse to spend time in coffee shops looking super important as you pound away at your laptop.

At any rate, I will be setting aside some time this October to cook up a loose outline of my Nano project and plan various writing parties and coffee shop crawls for any of my local friends and acquaintances who want to join the challenge. Stay tuned for At Least One, Possibly Twenty more blog posts on this subject. If I get enough interest I may also start a Facebook group. We'll see.

                          

Fall Reading

Fall is the time for reading Nostalgic and reading Spooky. I'm never more picky about my reading list then during the fall. I highly recommend using this time to reread favorite stories, especially ones from your high school years. But I also recommend you read some heavily atmospheric, at least mildly scary, books as well. It's the perfect season to curl up in a blanket and read a scary book so that you can trick your friends into thinking you're super brave when you go see the movie adaptation.

I'm committing to write the following blog posts in the next couple weeks to hopefully influence your Fall reading and other October/November Life Choices:

(In Probable Order, Actual Titles Pending)

1. In Defense of Halloween: Celebrating the Confrontation of Fear and Death
2. In Defense of Harry Potter: Separating Fantasy Wizards from Real Life Witchcraft
3. Where I Draw the Line with Horror Stories: Books and Film
4. Sister-Post with Liz Brooks: 10 (or so) Scary Books for Your Halloween Reading List
5. In Defense of Pumpkin Spice and Early Christmas Music
6. Why NaNoWriMo is Good for Your Soul

So that's something to look forward to. At least, I'm looking forward to it, as I've been pondering these topics extensively lately, and I'm excited to share my thoughts. I'm especially psyched about #4. Liz and I have been reading and talking and talking and reading in preparation, and we've come up with a really solid list, so Clear Your Schedule.

Talk to you soon, Friends!
Have a Lovely Fall.