Tag Archives: November writer

November 3, 2025 · 6:00 am

#NovelNovember – the quest has begun #writing

As many of you know, every November I set a writing quest goal for myself. Some years, it is to write the skeleton of an entire novel in 30 days. Other years, the goal might be to write a complete short story every day.

This year, my goal is to write the skeleton of a novel that is the second half of a duology. I can’t publish the first book until the second book is finished, as I intend to publish the two halves of that story simultaneously.

Also, I need to source the proper cover art for a different book that is ready for the final stage of the publication process. I have found some good candidates, but none are exactly what I am looking for.

Writing 50,000 words in thirty days has never been a problem for me. I just sit down and let my fingers spew random stuff that sometimes turns into a usable novel, so getting a desired word count has never been a problem.

Unfortunately, meeting the goal of writing a complete story arc for a novel in only 30 days is, and always will be, a struggle. Thus, I work from an outline. That helps rein in the randomness.

Writing for at least an hour every day without fail for an entire month takes determination.

Meeting that goal builds discipline.

I do have some strategies I developed during my 12 years as a municipal liaison for the now-defunct organization, NaNoWriMo.

Set aside time to write every day, at least one hour.

If you need quiet time, make that hour inviolable, an hour during which you are NOT to be bothered unless an amputation has occurred or the house is on fire. When I was still working, I found that by rising an hour early, the kids were still sleeping and the house was quiet. I also wrote while everyone else was watching TV.

The most important thing about developing a writing process is to find one that works for you.

Give yourself permission to try different things until you find something that works.

Do you work best in short bursts?
Are you at your best when you have a long session of privacy and quiet time?
Or is your process something in the middle, a melding of the two?

What if my style changes? What if the way that worked last month no longer works?

Give yourself permission to change and find a way that works best for you. Be willing to be flexible.

I have my best ideas when I’m about to leave the house. That’s no joke. If that is a problem you also have, do as I do and write those thoughts down. I keep a notebook in my bag just for those moments.

You will be productive once you find your best style.

But first, you must give yourself permission to write.

Go to a coffee shop or the library to write. You might find the place packed with other writers!

My regional NaNoWriMo group had over 250 writers. Your region may have had that many or more. We have evolved into a more diverse group, one that is not focused on achieving word count in November. Your local region may have also reformed with a new direction.

As a group, we old hands are nurturing budding novelists, playwrights, poets, and songwriters. We hold in-person write-ins at coffee shops and also virtual write-ins via Zoom. New and aspiring writers in our area can find us through our Facebook group and also through our Discord channel.

Sit your backside down and write your ideas as they come into your head. Don’t delete and don’t cut anything just yet.

Don’t worry about story arc, or worldbuilding, or anything like that. Get the characters and the plot on paper. Once you begin writing those characters, their story and their world will take shape. You can worry about info dumps and issues like that later.

The exposition you put into your first draft is your brain doing the worldbuilding and character development that is necessary to take the story from the opening page to “the end.” You will trim back the exposition and expand on the important things after the first draft is finished and revisions have begun. Right now, you need the info your crafty mind is dumping into the story.

To be happy, we must have a balanced life.

Writers and other artists must make sacrifices for their craft. It’s just how things are.

But you don’t have to sacrifice your family for it. Sacrifice one hour of sleeping in, or something ephemeral and unimportant, like one hour of TV.

That is why I scheduled my writing time when I had to hold down a job. I had to cook and clean for my family and ferry them to their various after-school activities. They helped with the housework if I nagged long enough, but sometimes it was easier to admit defeat and do it myself.

I take comfort in the fact that they are raising their own teenagers now.

(Insert evil laugh here.)

Give yourself small rewards for every milestone, writing or otherwise. It might be a batch of cookies or an afternoon of binging on that show you love so much.

I’m a grandma now and living alone, as my spouse has late-stage Parkinson’s. He is being well cared for in an Adult Family Home, one staffed by wonderful people who are trained to care for patients who require that much assistance. I visit him every morning without fail, and I schedule everything, including my writing, around his needs.

Nowadays, I have to force myself to do the ordinary household tasks (like laundry, my least favorite of all). My reward for doing that is an hour or two of reading or writing, whichever I am in the mood for.

However, for the month of November, my afternoons will be spent writing.

I will reward myself for achieving my writing goals. My self-indulgence is rewatching my favorite episodes of “The Brokenwood Mysteries.” Smart dialogue, wildly creative plots, great cast, and lovely New Zealand scenery.

Whatever your writing goals and however you choose to reward yourself, I hope you have a great and productive November.

If you are looking for something similar to the old NaNoWriMo (before it went off the rails) ProWriting Aid is running a Novel November quest, with a wordcount counter and plenty of ways to connect with other writers. I have signed up for this, just to see if it’s a good fit for me.

Go to What is Novel November? – ProWritingAid Help Center

Credits and Attributions:

Caution I stop for Hallucinations © Connie J. Jasperson 2025

I am their creator © Connie J. Jasperson 2025

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Tagged as NaNoWriMo, Novel November, November writer, writing

October 13, 2025 · 6:00 am

#Preptober: some things I learned from Lee French #writing

Every year since 2010, I have participated in the annual challenge of writing a 50,000-word (or more) novel in November. I was a Municipal Liaison for the now defunct organization known as NaNoWriMo for twelve years, but dropped that gig when the folks at NaNo HQ got too full of themselves and lost the concepts the organization was founded on.

I still participated, just not on their website. Before I deleted my account, I took a screenshot of my header, as it showed my accumulated wordcount. During those years I wrote 1,409,399 words. Some years were easier than others, but I always came away with something useful.

Spending the time every day to get a certain number of new words written forces me to become disciplined. It requires me to ignore the inner editor, the little voice that slows my productivity down and squashes my creativity.

For those two reasons alone, I will most likely always be a November Writer.

I love the rush, the thrill of having laid down the first draft of something that could become better with time and revisions. I am competing against my lazy self and really making the effort to get a complete story arc on paper.

Have I ever mentioned how my family loves Indy Car and the Memorial Day Weekend extravaganza known as the Indy 500? Well, if I haven’t, it’s true.

Jasperson clan at Indy 2012.

I have had many favorite drivers, one of whom is Takuma Sato . You may ask how an Indy Car driver is relevant to my completion of November’s writing rumble, and I will tell you.

He approaches competing like a samurai warrior, and that is how I see making a daily wordcount goal in November. No Attack, No Chance: The Takuma Sato Story – THOR Industries

As Takuma Sato says, “No attack, no chance.”

To really commit to this and get your word count, you must become a Word Warrior. Even if you intend to wing it, a little advance prep is helpful.

Author Lee French, who was my co-ML and dear friend for all those years had a pep-talk she would give our writers, beginning in October, or Preptober as we veterans call it. She has kindly allowed me to quote her notes from 2020:

Pick any of these things you want to write about or with. Be as specific as possible for each thing. These things can come from a number of different categories, such as but not limited to:

Creatures – Dragons, demons, fae, vampires, elves, aliens, babies, wolves, mosquitoes, and so on. This includes anything nonhuman, and may refer to heroes, villains, or side characters of any importance.
Natural disasters – Tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, melting polar ice caps, climate change effects, etc. This can mean a story that takes place during or after a disaster, or it can mean there’s a disaster looming and the goal is to prevent or mitigate it.
Themes – Love, death, survival, good vs. evil, prejudice, etc. Any theme will do. You can mix two, but should steer clear of more than that. If you’re not sure what constitutes a theme, google “story themes” for an array of options.
Relationships – Siblings, romance, platonic love, friendship, breaking up/divorce, etc.
Moods – Grim, utopian, dark, gritty, light, noble bright, comedic, etc.
Geography/type of area – Forest, mountains, urban, rural, caves, isolated, etc.
Phenomena – Magic, psychic powers, supernatural whatnot, miracles, and the like.

Once you have your list, take the time to think about it. Sit back, ruminate on each thing, and make some notes. This could take a few days, or as little as an afternoon. In 2020,

Lee’s five things looked like this:

Magic

Secondary world fantasy.

Other races exist.

The MC uses magic in a lowkey way.

Magic is not commonly used by ordinary people.

There’s a squirrel.

Romance

Cishet. Female MC, male Love Interest.

The guy is different in some important way, like being nonhuman or following a religious path that’s frowned upon by most folk.

The romance is a value-added bonus, not the plot.

Unexpected Ice Age

Caused by magic.

Affects the entire world.

Makes survival challenging, especially for food and fuel.

The cold is enough to kill fairly swiftly.

Good vs. Evil

Bad guy is the leader of the city.

No, wait. It’s two bad guys. They’re partners. Siblings?

Good guy is in hiding.

I think I need a secondary bad guy too, like a lieutenant.

Refuge City of Debris

Jagged edges, abrupt changes in material, faded colors.

The population is in the 2-5 thousand range.

Surrounded by a wall or cliffs. Or both!

I have always loved the way her mind works.

For me, once I begin writing my new manuscript on November 1^st, the hardest part is NOT SELF-EDITING!!! But overcoming that habit is crucial, and not just for wordcount. We need to get the ideas down while they are fresh, and any step backwards can stall the project.

Tips from me for a good November:

Never delete and don’t self-edit as you go. Don’t waste time re-reading your work. You can do all that in December when you go back to look at what you have written.

Make a list of all the names and words you invent as you go and update it each time you create a new one, so the spellings don’t evolve as the story does.

If wordcount is your goal, write 1670 words every day and you will have 50,000 words on November 30^th.

This year for me, wordcount is important but not the entire enchilada. Writing the second book in my unfinished duology is the project that I intend to complete.

Here are some Resources to Bookmark in advance:

Three websites a beginner should go to if they want instant answers in plain English:

Most importantly, enjoy this experience of writing. There is no other reason to put yourself through this.

Credits and Attributions:

Special thanks to best-selling author of YA Fantasy and Sci-fi, Lee French, for allowing me to quote her work notes. She is an inspiration to me!

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Tagged as #NaNoPrep, Lee French, November writer, Preptober, writing

October 6, 2025 · 6:00 am

#Preptober: Names as a part of worldbuilding #writing

October has arrived, or as many writers will tell you, Preptober. This is the month when November Writers begin preparing for November’s annual writing rumble, the event formerly known as NaNoWriMo. They may create a list of characters and their respective roles.

Some, like me, will begin with worldbuilding, drawing a map of where the story will take place and thinking about the people who will bring that world to life.

Creating characters and maps means devising names for people and places. If you are setting your story in a real-world environment, half of the work is done for you. All you have to do is download a few Google Maps, and you have your world.

However, you still need to give your people names. You may also need to invent a town or county that doesn’t exist, but which will fit seamlessly into the real world.

Names are a part of the subtext, an aspect that adds to the reader’s mental view but usually goes unnoticed. The names you assign people and places are a part of worldbuilding. If you give your characters names that don’t fit the time, society, and geographical area, readers will find them jarring.

Although I usually start with an outline, my first drafts are often a mess. My stream of consciousness takes over, and I give every walk-on a name, right down to the dog.

This happens because when I am in the creative zone, I forget to look at the outline.

During the first stage of revisions, I whittle down my cast of thousands to a reasonable level.

Here are three rules for deciding who should be named and who should not. Don’t worry about these rules when you are laying down the first draft. Think about them when the story is finished and you are making revisions, as that is when you are making the story flow better.

Is this character someone the reader should remember?
Does the person return later in the story?
Only give names to characters who advance the plot.

These suggestions are true of a novel, a screenplay, or a short story. Names alert us, telling us a character will play an important role in the story.

In my experience as a reader, the pacing an author is trying to establish comes to a halt when a character who is only included for the ambiance has too much time devoted to them.

Book Cover image “Story” by Robert McKee.

Novelists can learn a lot about writing a good, concise scene from screenwriters. An excellent book on craft is an older one, but it’s still relevant. Story by Robert McKee.

We want the reader to stay focused on the protagonist(s) and their story. Having too many named characters in a scene is easy to fix. Consider removing characters from the scene if they have nothing to contribute. An example of this is one I’ve used before. It is a transition scene between two characters involved in solving a mystery. One has learned something crucial and needs to meet with the other before he stumbles into trouble.

Julie entered the café at 3:30. All the seats were taken, except for one at the counter, between a man in paint-stained coveralls and a woman with a briefcase at her feet. She caught Nathan’s eye, and he brought her a coffee. “We need to talk,” she whispered. “I’ll wait until you’re free.”

Nathen raised an eyebrow. “I get off at four. See you then.” He refilled several coffees at the counter, then carried the pot to the tables.

This scene depicts Nathan in his job, serving as both worldbuilding and character development. Julie doesn’t need to talk to the people on either side of her onscreen, as idle chit-chat is not necessary and fluffs up the wordcount. The scene can skip forward, and the conversation with Nathan will pick up outside the café after he is off work.

Transition scenes between action scenes are dangerous because the tendency to make every random character memorable is one we can’t indulge. The reader will become confused and irritated if too many characters are named. If a character is set dressing, they should be like the furniture, included solely to lend atmosphere to the scene.

So what about the names we give our people? I’ve mentioned before that I learned a lesson the hard way about naming characters. I have a main character named Marya in one of my early novels, and she’s central to that series. Also, in the first book, a side character was important enough to have a name, but my mind must have been in a rut when I thought that one up.

For some reason, I named her Marta. Marya … Marta … the two names are nearly identical.

To make that faux pas worse, halfway through the first draft of the second book in the series, Marta suddenly became a protagonist with a significant storyline. She actually becomes Marya’s mother-in-law in the next book.

Fortunately, I was in the final stages of editing Book One for publication. I immediately realized I had to make a major correction, and Marta was renamed Halee.

An author should introduce as many characters as necessary to tell the story but should also use common sense.

One last thing to consider is how that name will be pronounced when read aloud. Something that looks good on paper might be impossible to pronounce. Audiobooks have become a big thing, so you may not want to get too fancy with the spelling. That way, a narrator can easily read that name aloud.

In conclusion, don’t confuse your readers by giving unimportant walk-on characters names, and never give two characters names that are nearly identical.

Consider making your spellings of names and places pronounceable, just in case you decide to have your novel made into an audiobook. Your narrator will thank you!

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Tagged as names and worldbuilding, November writer, Preptober, writing

November 11, 2024 · 6:00 am

#NovemberWriter: the Zen writing experience #writing

Every writer is different, with a unique approach to getting their work on paper. There is no one-size-fits-all method for taking a story from an idea, a “what if” moment, to a finished piece. Each of us has to find our own way.

MyWritingLife2021B I’m like everyone else. I can’t write creatively when life is too stressful. But I can always write a blog post, which is how I keep my writing muscles in “fighting form.”

However, I have a few tools in my writer’s toolbox that jar things loose, help me organize my ideas, and help me make a coherent, logical arc out of a story.

When I reach a point in a manuscript where I’ve run out of ideas, I stop forcing it. I’m an indie and my deadlines are self-imposed, so my production timelines aren’t as finite as a writer who is under contract. I begin a different project and come back to the other one when inspiration returns.

Sometimes a project begins well and despite that great beginning, it goes unfinished. This happens when I run out of ideas for that story, which leads to me loosing enthusiasm. I set that project aside and work on something else. Maybe it’s a short story or a poem, but it’s something I can finish. That way, I can relax and enjoy the act of creating something from idea to completion.

As an indie, my goals are for me, not for anyone else. I choose to embrace a Zen writing life.

courtesy Office360 graphics

One manuscript has sat unfinished for several years for a variety of reasons. The story was stalled at the halfway point and I had only a vague idea of how it must end. This year I managed to write a synopsis of the final half of the story arc and that has become invaluable as an outline. Writing is now moving ahead as I had hoped.

One important thing I have come to accept is this: my work is written for a niche market of those few readers who seek out the kind of work that I do. I write what I want to read, and I am an odd duck when it comes to literature.

Despite how much I love the stories that fall out of my head, my work doesn’t appeal to readers of action adventure. My stories are internal. The characters and the arc of their personal journeys are the central elements of their stories. While I love the action and the setting, those elements are only the frame within which the characters live and grow.

In the old days, I didn’t understand that. I marketed it to the wrong audience. Readers of action and adventure aren’t interested in slower-paced work. Even worse, I rushed to publish my work when it wasn’t ready.

So, the first hard-earned snippet of wisdom I have to share today is this: Write your stories for yourself and don’t stop trying.

The second piece of wisdom is a little more challenging but is a continuation of the first point: Write something new every day, even if it is only one line. Your aptitude for writing grows in strength and skill when you exercise it daily. This is where blogging comes in for me—it’s my daily exercise. If you only have ten minutes free, use them to write whatever enters your head, stream-of-consciousness.

The third thought is a fun thing: learn the meaning of a new word every day. You don’t have to use every word you know, but it never hurts to learn new things. Authors should have broad vocabularies.

The fourth thing: is don’t sweat the small stuff when you are just laying down the first draft. I know it’s a cliché, but it is also a truism. Let the words fall out of your head, passive phrasing and all, because the important thing is to finish the story.

The fifth thing to remember is this: every author begins as someone who wants to write but feels like an imposter. The authors who succeed in finishing a poem, a short story, or a novel are those who are brave enough to just do it. They find the time to sit down and put their ideas on paper.

800px-Singapore_Road_Signs_-_Temporary_Sign_-_Detour.svg Authors must overcome roadblocks in their personal life. Everyone has times of trouble, and they affect our ability to be creative. During the years I was raising my children, I had three failed marriages, worked three part-time jobs as a single mother, and struggled to find time and the energy to write.

Life got better financially once we survived the trickle-down economics experiment of the 1980s, and I found better jobs. In 2003, I met the love of my life but two of my children developed adult-onset epilepsy. We learned to cope with the tribulations of the dreaded “E” word, and we had many good years. And now my husband is in the later stages of Parkinson’s.

This makes life a little too interesting at times. Writing enables me to make sense of the twists and turns of our human experience.

It helps me process life’s complications in a non-threatening way.

I don’t write to win awards, and I don’t earn a lot from it. I have the time to write and not feel guilty about any arbitrary goals I don’t achieve.

virtually golden medallion of mayhem copy The story is the goal; everything else is a bonus.

In real life, nothing is certain. Adversity in life forges strength and if you are a person blessed with empathy, it forges an understanding of other people’s challenges. Having the opportunity to make daily notes in a journal, to write poetry, blog posts, short stories, or novels is a luxury, one I am grateful for.

The first draft of your manuscript is the thinking draft. Don’t worry too much about self-editing when you are laying down what you think might be the story. Just get those thoughts down and enjoy the feeling of writing the story you need to write.