From 2010 to 2023, I participated in an annual writing rumble called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. It was an annual creative writing challenge held in November each year. It began in 1999 in San Francisco with a group of twenty-one writers challenging each other to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. Over the years, it grew into a multinational event, an annual convergence of writers from all over the world.
For the first eight years of my participation, it was fun. During my ten years as a municipal liaison (ML) for that now-defunct organization, I discovered that there is no one way to begin and complete a novel or any other writing project that fits everyone.
However, some of us get more done when we have a deadline, even a self-imposed one.
The joy went out of NaNoWriMo once the national leadership changed, for reasons well documented on YouTube. Both my Co-ML and I became disgusted with its overtly corporate direction and walked away a year before the organization fell apart.
But November happens every year, and it’s still a great month to get that novel out of your head and onto paper.
I got involved in that annual challenge when a young writer in the Philippines, whom I met through a gaming website, mentioned he planned to participate. I had never heard of it, but since I had started and sort of completed several rambling, incoherent novels, I was intrigued.
I wasn’t sure I could do this crazy thing. But when I broke down the numbers, I saw that all I had to do was write 1,667 words daily. That was something I could do if I dedicated three hours an evening to it. I told my husband, and he said to go for it, even though I didn’t know what to write about.
Everyone who knows me will tell you that fear of failure has never stopped me from ruining my life. So, I googled the national website and signed up. I chose the handle dragon_fangirl. Through the website, I discovered that my town had a large group of participants in various stages of their careers, some who’d never written a thing, and others with several books published.
I started going to their “write-ins,” meetings at coffee shops and libraries where we got together and wrote furiously for one or two hours as a group. We commiserated and discussed our progress, and in the process I found a cadre of friends who became the core of my writing group. I am still writing with them.
During that first year, I rose at 6:30 a.m. on November 1, 2010, filled with trepidation. I opened a new document, gave it the title of “NaNoWriMo novel,” and saved it,
Then I stared at my laptop, with no idea where to begin or even what I wanted to write.
I had been working on an urban fantasy for several years, but I wanted to do something new. An idea had been lurking in the back of my mind for a Don Quixote-style character. But I also wanted to write sword-and-sorcery.
I read Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote as a teenager (at my father’s behest) and borrowed (stole) the heartily misogynistic adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser from Dad’s nightstand, along with any other lurid and unsuitable novels that happened to be lying around.
I loved any kind of fantasy, from sword and sorcery to Arthurian mashups to epic high fantasy. The first words I wrote for that year’s novel were: There was a cabin in the woods.
It was a banal beginning, but it gave my idea a jumping-off point. I just began telling the story as it fell out of my mind. Surprisingly, I discovered my word count averaged 2,500 to 3,000 words daily. By day fifteen, I knew I would have no trouble getting to 50,000, and by November 21st, I had passed the 50,000-word mark.
At the 68,000-word point, I had completed my rollicking tale of snark and medieval derring-do. It was utterly unpublishable, but I didn’t know that until after an unfortunate experience with a predatory publisher.
The one thought that comforted me during that rough beginning was the fact that I had written the basics of a story I would have sought out at the bookstore.
After that fiasco, I turned to other writing projects for several years. I had written the storyline for an anime-based RPG that was never published because of a lack of funding and the tech crash. I still had the rights to my story and maps, so I wrote it as a novel, had it edited by my current editor, and published it. Three more novels set in that world followed.
Then my friends suggested I could rewrite the novel that my first publisher had ruined and republish it. After my wounds had healed from the bad publishing experience, I took the novel apart and separated the three main character threads. Over the next ten years, those threads became three books: Huw the Bard, Billy Ninefingers, and Julian Lackland.
All three novels are set in that original alternate medieval world, and center around the same group of characters. Much of what was originally written could be reused.
I learned how to lay down a first draft through participating in my local NaNoWriMo group. The wonderful people I met during those years helped me gain the tools I needed to turn a first draft into a properly finished book.
If you have the idea for a novel and want to get it out of your head while you are enthused about it, I suggest you write at least 1,670 words every day. At the end of thirty days, you will have written slightly more than 50,000 words.
This takes me about 2 hours of stream-of-consciousness writing, as long as I don’t go back to correct misspelled words. I do have an outline to follow, which has grown into a storyboard. This plan of action helps me know what should come next.
Many excellent writing challenges have emerged since NaNoWriMo’s downfall.
If you are looking for something to spur you into action this November, check out:
Novel November™ by ProWritingAid: The Free Writing Challenge
Reedsy Studio Writing Challenges
Pathfinders Writing Collective
AutoCrit Novel 90 Writing Challenge
And SO many more. Just Google “writing challenges” and see what you might be interested in
Last year I participated in ProWritingAid’s Novel November and had a great time. I posted about my experience here: #NovelNovember has ended, my book isn’t done, and once again, I’m clueless #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy
The inciting incident is followed by a series of plot points, places where complications are introduced into the narrative.
The opening setting for this story is a small town in an exceedingly rural part of Thurston County. One must travel at least ten miles in any direction to find another city. After sundown, you must drive on narrow, winding, pitch-black country roads. I, the protagonist in my story, suffer from severe night blindness, which meant we had to return home before sundown, putting a real crimp in our social life.
Major surgeries happened for the other two, and I was many miles away to the south, getting our house on the market. But our sons and daughters are entering middle age, and our older grandchildren are adults. Despite our worries, our granddaughters proved they were mature and more than capable of handling their lives.
The protagonists are settling into the new neighborhood. One of the niftiest things about their community is the Starbucks—and yes, I did say Starbucks. The owners of the 
I find that writing is easy here. Creativity comes in bursts, and I feel good about my writing. We have pared our possessions down to the point that they don’t possess us—something you don’t realize is a problem until you are faced with serious downsizing.
From my earliest childhood, I always thought of myself as a writer. I just didn’t know how to write anything longer than a poem or a song in such a way that it was readable.
One day in 1990, I stumbled upon a book offered in the 
Three: Find a local group of writers to meet with and talk about the craft.
Spend the money to go to conventions and attend seminars. You will learn so much about the craft of writing, the genre you write in, and the publishing industry as a whole—things you can only learn from other authors. I gained an extended professional network by joining The Pacific Northwest Writers Association and going to their conferences.
Six: My final suggestion is this: even though you are writing that novel, keep writing short stories too.
My parents also had bought 
Then, in 1987, my father bought me a secondhand 
I’m proud to admit that my literary influences can be traced back to dragons, booze, elves, 
I shared what I wrote with other people and got feedback, some good, some bad. I learned from it all and kept trying. I bought books on the craft of writing.
My husband is recovering from a total hip replacement, so traveling out of town for an extended stay involves a lot of logistics. Also, I am vegan, which has an impact on things. I can eat in restaurants, but once I am away from my part of the world, the menu is often limited to a garden salad.
Protein is essential, and I have many delicious options to make that don’t involve processed foods. My favorite “impress-the-son-in-law” cookbook is this gem by 
The most surprising thing about being vegan is how little it costs to eat well once you have your pantry basics. Going sans meat is the lazy person’s dream diet. It’s amazing how quickly you can get a meal on the table, and whether you are making beans or soup, the crockpot is your best friend. I often make my own bread from several different recipes, a tasty treat that takes less than five minutes to put together using my bread machine.
