NaNoWriMo 2023

Even though I was blogging on a semi-weekly basis about my preparations for NaNoWriMo, it was still a bit of a shock when it was finally here.

If you didn't already know it, I'm an ML, a Municipal Liaison, for the Denver region of National Novel Writing Month.  ML just means I'm a regional coordinator, so with the help of a couple other MLs (Denver is a big region!) we coordinate local events, send out emails, and just basically do our best to help everyone stay motivated.  We have a really active region, and it's probably at least in part due to how many local events we have every year.

Our kickoff party Tuesday night - where we all start writing at midnight on November 1st - was a success, though a little small still post-pandemic.  We had 33 people at the highest count I got, up a few from 28ish last year.  (Before the pandemic we used to get 50-60 at weeknight kickoff parties, and 100+ on the weekends, so we still have a ways to go to return to pre-pandemic levels of participation.)

Right now I'm using a read-and-revise of what I have of my novel so far to familiarize myself with what I wrote last year, and then I'll skim what I wrote in previous years, since I'm planning to rewrite all of that pretty much entirely for this draft.  I'm hoping to finish the novel this year, and revise and self-publish next year.  You can track my progress on my NaNoWriMo profile, and also on my novel's blog, RubyRansome.com.

I feel like I'm on a good track so far, for just being a couple days into the month.  I've been working steadily on the read-through and revisions over the last couple days, and hope to finish by the end of the weekend so that I can get to work on new writing.

Right now, I have four write-ins scheduled per week (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays) with only the Wednesday ones not being "my" write-ins, so it's setting up to be a busy month!  Last year I tried to get the badge for updating every day, but lost that when I failed to write and update my word count on Thanksgiving.  This year I'm hoping to get that badge, and I'm also going to try to get the badge for making par (1,667 words) every day.

Into the breach once more, my friends!  Wish me luck!