Its That Time of Year Again... NaNoWriMo!

Every year for the past eight years, I have tried my hand at the writing challenge that happens every November. I've successfully completed it 5 times and published 4 books that I wrote during the challenge. One of the books I wrote during the month will never see the light of day because when I fled my marriage, I left it there and I will probably never see it again unless one of my kids finds it and talks their dad into sending it to me. It was a good one too. But now let's back up a bit. What exactly is NaNoWriMo? It is a writing challenge where during the month of November (National Novel Writing Month) you write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Does it sound impossible? Well, it can be. If you have stuff going on in your life that takes precedence then you won't finish. If you have a tragedy in your life, again, you won't finish. If you are sick, you won't finish. But then there are the years when everything just falls into place and there you go, you have a complete novel, or most of one.

I wasn't so sure that I would be able to participate this year. It can take a lot of time and work and I am just finishing up a divorce, second-guessing my decision to leave my kids with their father, living in a new country, and living in a house where I have other responsibilities that I can not ignore. But you know, for eight years I've tried and so I will try again this year. If I don't succeed, oh well. I can still write a novel, just not in a month.

I think I have a plan as to how I can manage my household responsibilities with the writing. I used to write with pen and paper and it took all day to get my minimum amount of daily words. But now that I am writing on the computer, I find that it doesn't take quite as long. And now that I am out of the shroud of abuse, I have my mojo back and the ideas flow much easier than they have in the past few years.

So, what am I going to write this year? Well, it was between a three-part series about a woman who survives a narc/bpd abuse marriage and escapes. But it was a bit too soon to tackle that. It's still so fresh. I could also have finished book 2 in my cozy mystery series, and lastly, I figured I could write an age-gap romance since I am living one right now. And then I got bit by a writing bug and in two weeks I wrote the second book in my cozy mystery series... oops. So I figured I could maybe write book 3 (that will take place in Tasmania). But I just wasn't feeling it. I hadn't had a lot of time to think about it and come up with a great storyline yet. And I didn't want to feel rushed.

Then one day I was on my Google Docs and decided to look through old documents. And low and behold there was a manuscript that I had written a few thousand words of many years ago and thought I'd lost. I mean I seriously searched all my emails, all my thumb drives, and I thought all my Google Docs, but there it was. Woo Hoo! It is about a woman who has to prove that her father's caretaker not only stole everything he had but murdered him in the end. The book was called Lily of the Valley. So, guess what I'm going to work on during NaNoWriMo? Yep. Lily of the Valley will (hopefully) see the light of day soon. I will share the cover of that and of my next three releases. I hope you enjoy it!

Wish me luck! I'm raring to go. On November first I'm going to put my hands to my keyboard and start writing until I hit that 50,000-word mark on or before November 30th.

Until Next Time...