My own NaNoWriMo

I’ve yet to do NaNoWriMo.

For the uninitiated, National Novel Writing Month is an annual event taking place in November in which writers try to complete a novel in a single month. It’s a great idea, but I’ve never participated.

For one thing, I work full-time as a journalist — basically writing all day — and I’ve never had the time or energy to participate. Also, maybe I’ve just never had the timing right. Every time November rolls around, I seem to be in the middle of a project and I don’t want to lift my head up to work on something new.

Still though, I’ve always liked the idea of spending a month just focusing on creative writing — a month to bash out ideas and just get in the flow of writing.

Thanks to the encouragement of my lovely wife Mallika, I’m finally going to do it. Okay, so not in November, and I’m not starting from scratch on something new… but I am going to spend the next month making a full-on effort to finish my in-progress third novel, The Wanderer and the New West.

I wouldn’t be able to do this if not for the fact that Mallika and I are in the midst of a huge life change. After three years living and working in Australia, we have decided to move back to the USA. I finished working at IDG Australia at the end of March, and as a result have about four solid weeks to focus on my novel.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’m about two-thirds of the way through. I’ve written all that over about two years (including development of the idea and the actual writing), all while self-publishing and promoting my first two novels and working that full-time job to which I keep referring. I think now, though, that I’ve got enough momentum to finish the remaining third of the first draft in the next month if I give it my devoted and undistracted attention.

Happy to report I got to work today and wrote two new scenes and tuned up a few existing chapters. I have to say that it felt really good. In fact … I better get back to work!