Despite a major widespread November writing event not being in the mix this year, many writing communities are active now. Out of habit, perhaps? Who cares! It is fun. Without NaNoWriMo, I still started a new writing project, hopped on and off the OHHOW train, joined the Game of Tomes, saw others fighting 4TheWords, and more.

This year, I am writing without a plot (also known as pantser-style), and I have learned unexpected lessons from it. I am used to my stories coming from inspiration. This feels more like a job, albeit a fun job. Sit down, add a paragraph that fits with little to no artistic feelings or intuition to guide me, repeat. I dare say it is good for me.

I am behind, as is normal for me at this point in the challenge. Something more important or more urgent needs done, and the frivolous-feeling writing project gets pushed down in priority. “I’ll write next, after this one little thing, and one more, oh and this too,” et cetera. But so it goes every year, and I have always reached the fifty thousand words of the challenge so far.

A couple of new story ideas occurred to me this month. While I wrote down the basics of them so I will not forget, I have not included those words in my count. I want at least most of the challenge’s words to be from the single story’s draft, to better fit the original NaNoWriMo challenge; however, I will likely add these extra ones if I am still behind nearer the end of the month.

The important thing is to write all 50,000 words in these 30 days. I said when I completed my first event that it would be amazing to not miss one. That goal is longer lived than the recent, ‘meet every specification of the original challenge this year.’ I shall rise to the challenge again.