National Novel Writing Month

It’s that time of year again, and it’s been a minute since I tried to pull it together enough to actually finish something.

I’ve been working the last couple of months, but National Novel Writing Month is a huge commitment. 50,000 words in 30 days OR 12,500 words per week OR 1667 words per day. And somehow, these words need to be part of a coherent story. The goal is to write a novel or at least most of a novel.

Seriously, it is not that I haven’t been writing or that I don’t have stories. I have and I do. There are currently two “completed” Blood Link novels (9 & 10), and the beginning of the next one (11). I need to finish the partially written Blood Link novel before I can release the two “completed” ones. I say completed in quotes because they’ll need a little tuning based on what I do in the one I’m working on. Making sure that what’s said in Book 9 actually happens in Book 11 and no threads get dropped is a ton of work. I hate when I read a series and they just wander off in the middle of the fourth book and blow everything up.

There are also two partially written stand-alone novels – maybe the first quarter or third. They both have good legs so I hope to be able to figure out how I want them to go.

The first sticking point is whether my old, partially petrified, and occasionally foggy brain can focus on the task at hand. It’s a huge time commitment. Having a firm goal that I’ve accomplished several times in the past is not a bad thing and it might just carry me through.

While the first issue is my brain, the largest problem may just be the price of coffee. I’m going to need a lot of coffee to pull this off.