My Blog

NaNoWriMo 2021

I’ve attempted to “win” NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) several times in the past, but in 2019 I decided to do something a little different. I’d been thinking a lot about writing over the summer of 2019, and felt impressed that it was finally time to take my writing seriously. Previously, I’d talked with my husband about trying to finally write a book once my kids (the youngest of whom is due in December) were older. But I just kept thinking…if not now, when? What’s stopping me from just doing it?

So when my husband approached me in September of 2019 and told me he couldn’t stop thinking about how it was time for me to write a book, I jumped at that show of support. I spent all of October planning, plotting, and working on character development for a book which had been stuck in my head for well over a decade at that point.

I didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo that year. In fact, I think I might have written a little over 25k words. But, at the time, it was the most I’d ever written of a story. Ever. That book was the first of my Hearts of Eire series–Distant Shores. Yes, that was the first book I ever finished (granted, it wasn’t until May of 2020 that I actually finished my first draft).

Fast forward to this year. NaNoWriMo 2021. It is…not going so hot, to be honest. I decided to try and get 50k on a project I had already started (I had about 11k words as of Oct 31st) instead of starting and entirely new project. And it isn’t that, when I sit down to write, I can’t think. It’s just that life is crazy busy and stressful right now. Between being part of a massive “layoff” (aka job loss because of Chinese government regulations), being a homeschool mom, looking for a way to replace my income, and a preterm labor scare, I don’t really have the time to write (I say as I write a blog post. I know. I know.) At least, it’s nowhere near the amount of time I had before. And I think that’s the most difficult part.

Life changes. For the past two years, it seems like it’s constantly been changing and forcing us all to adapt in different ways. At the end of the day, I’m trying to be happy with 1k words, 800 words, 500 words or, more often than not, less. “Progress is progress” is the mantra I have adopted as of late. It feels like a cop out most days, but other times it’s the only way I can comfort myself. I probably won’t win NaNo this year. But I didn’t when I wrote Distant Shores, and look what happened there. As Uncle Patrick reminds us in Distant Shores, “Anything worth fighting for will take a lot of effort and patience.”

11/6/2021