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poppyseedheart ([personal profile] poppyseedheart) wrote2022-10-31 05:36 pm

nanowrimo eve 2022

 National Novel Writing Month starts TOMORROW!! [this is where i would put a gifspam if we were still in like 2010] Eek! I participate every year and every year it sneaks up on me. The best and worst time of the year. It's always both.

This year I am tackling original fiction! I'm not going to say much about the story here for perhaps optimistic against-mixing-fandom-and-irl reasons, but it's queer and very me and I have a lot of outlines and freewriting and visual inspiration saved up, as well as about 5k already written going into nano. I love this story a lot! I didn't want to commit to anything I wasn't obsessed with and I figured when I started daydreaming about it in my day-to-day that was a good sign.

I've won the last I think five NaNoWriMos I've participated in (hold on while I fact check this, yes it's five :)) which is bonkers to think about, but only one of those was original fiction, and that one I think was quite bad. In my defense I was like 20 years old. This one will hopefully be better.

Anyway the others were all fic, including the 50k of the currently 90k+ Emma AU I still haven't finished. All I can say is I hope soon to be free of that monster, but it's not happening in November! Maybe this turn away from fic is why I'm so nervous this year, when usually I approach November with an almost reckless kind of chaotic hope and enthusiasm. I'll be honest folks I'm freaked!!

Fingers crossed that a few days to shake loose the nerves will help me feel more settled into this year's challenge. There are other reasons this coming November is stressful for me and if all goes to plan they'll be resolved after the first week, so there's that to look forward to too, alongside seeing Ateez and going to a cabin in the woods for a long weekend to have a writing retreat with friends. Much to anticipate! Much excitement! May it outweight the part of my brain that keeps insisting I'm not ready to write my own characters in my own world. Begone, demon. You can't stop me from trying.

PS: if you're also doing nano please sound off I would love to hear about your projects/strategies/hopes/fears/etc!
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[personal profile] aceaceaceace 2022-11-01 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Good luck! You have a great track record, so I'm sure you'll do well! I'm doing NaNoWriMo too but only sorta because I'm aiming for 30,000 instead across several different fanfics. I've "won" proper 50K NaNos twice, but I decided not to push too hard this year. My main goal is to just make progress on some of the many fic ideas that keep cropping up in my head/fic fests I've signed up for so I can cross them off my list.

My personal strategy to raise my word count each day is to write in different locations. If I'm tiring out or losing motivation in one location, I will pack up and move to another. On weekends, that sometimes means I will write at my house, write at a coffeeshop, write at the library, write at a cafe, and then go back home and write again lol. I know some people do better staying in one spot, but I've just found this works really well for me!