Hello, readers!
As those of you who have followed this blog for a while know, I always post about what my plans are for NaNoWriMo*. And as those of you who have read my last few updates may have guessed by now, since I have a 3-month-old baby, I am not planning to do much.
It's weird to say that. I first started doing NanNo 10 years ago, and most years since I've done something, even if it's not straight pounding out 50,000 words for a new novel. In fact part of why I haven't always just straight up done NaNo is because I started a novel 10 years ago... and still have yet to finish it. I don't need to be writing 50,000 more words for a novel that will take me another decade to finish.
Last year, I wrote almost every day, adding scenes that needed to be written to my still-in-progress novel from 2009 (more on that here: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/10/30/lets-go-wri-mo and here: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/11/30/you-go-wri-mo ). I wrote 31 pages of new material last November, and then wrote a little more in February before Baldur got sick. And, between Baldur and preparing for Elianna this year, I never got all of that new material inserted into the main document. I haven't done any work on The Wolf and the Sheath in probably 4 or 5 months. And, honestly, I have very little expectation of my ability to get any substantial work done on it before the end of the year. It pains me to say that.
When I started The Wolf and the Sheath, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't have finished it in 10 years. But a lot has happened in my life since 2009. I was living with my parents and working 2 or 3 part-time jobs (that didn't add up to 40 hours a week). I hadn't met my husband yet, and so we obviously didn't have our dogs or our baby. And yes, I know there are people out there who write while working full time and/or taking care of their kids. And maybe I will eventually get to the point where I can write and take care of Elianna and the house - but it will not be before Friday.
But I shouldn't be discouraged - my sister recently finished writing her first novel. It took her 10 years, during which time she has not only been teaching full-time, but also earned her master' degree. It can be done. Just not right now.
So what am I going to do instead? Well, I never did finish rereading all the new material I wrote earlier this year, so I'm at least going to try to do that. Check back in late November or early December to see how it goes.
*If you're not familiar with the abbreviation, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel-Writing Month, which takes place annually in November. Writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It's not as hard as it sounds - it breaks down to about 1700 words a day, which is just a couple pages. The hard part is not writing 50,000 words - the hard part is actually finishing the novel after November ends.