National Novel Wring Month, or more commonly known as NaNoWriMo, is in just a couple week.

Ah, November, the month of wracking your brain, keyboards clacking, and endless words. A month in which insane people get together on forums, and coffee shops, and write 50,000 words of a story. How I love it!

I have been participating in NaNoWriMo for many years now. I have “won” all of them except for the last two. And this year I want to get back on the horse, so I’m changing things up a bit.

I know that I find it easier to write if I know what I’m writing. Thankfully I have a new outline of 3400 words. Most of my outlines usually end up about 10% of the actual book length, but I know where I need to fill in the story a bit more so I’m fairly confidant this story can get to 50k easily.

Last year I had an outline for a story but failed, and it wasn’t because the outline wasn’t good. I still think I’d like to revisit that story at some point, but it was a story in a new world that I hadn’t developed, or found a voice for. That made it nearly impossible for me to write. I kept rewriting sections, deleting parts, or stalling out because I had a setting, world, and plot, but the characters weren’t developed. I didn’t know who they were, and I couldn’t find their voice.

This year I’m working on book 4 in a series that is already established. I know the characters, their weaknesses, their desires, and the trouble their going to find. This will help me keep going for most, if not all of the month.

The lovely thing about starting a new story…. I can write so much in the first few weeks of it, getting ideas out of my head, and finding a rhythm easily. It’s after that lovely burst of creativity fades that I finally come up for air and the dreaded internal editor rears its ugly head. I fight the foul demon off again, and make a mad dash for the finish line, only to be tripped up by him moments from the crossing. This time I will scrape the internal editor off my bruised muse, shove it back in a bottle, and keep going. I intend to win.

I’ve also been making a discovery about my writing habits. For the longest time I wrote in the evenings after the children went to bed, when I had a few moments to myself. Now that I don’t have children I find that I tend to get lost in youtube, or a book, or something else if I let myself. I used to hate writing in the morning before my brain was fully awake, but I’m starting to realize that is now the best time for me to start. Because if I start, and I just get a hundred words out before my coffee, then it’s easier to keep going.

This is a massive change, and really hard for me to do. I used to sit down with a warm coffee of coffee, and something for breakfast with something cheerful to watch on youtube. It was my way of waking up fully, and greeting the day.

Now I’m shoving that all aside. Actively trying to avoid anything other than words for the first moments of the day. It is a habit built over decades, and it will take a while to break it, but I’m confidant I can.

I will be writing more blog posts next month so that I can keep up on my writing and share what is happening on that front. Look forward to that.