November Is Coming
November is coming. In previous years, this meant I would be prepping for a massive writing challenge in which the goal was to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I’ve participated in the past and even won in 2019 with a now-defunct version of the Fourth Prince series. The platform is huge among the writing community. You might even know which one I’m talking about. This year, however, due to them inserting political views where they don’t belong, I’m rethinking what my participation is going to look like.
I don’t give them money. I barely open their emails. I only use their platform for the social aspect. I’ve created my own spreadsheet that tracks what I want to know and is far more robust than what is offered on their platform. But there is something fun about it, nonetheless. I won’t lose sleep over the platform one way or another. I have no problem using it, but I’m not going to promote or encourage others to use it.
All that to say, I have finally decided on my project for November.
Since I’m on the tail end of edits on my upcoming novel, Of Ice and Roses,, I’m a bit burned out. There’s still more to do before the official release in December, but for now, I want to do something fun.
I’m going to play with the characters and the world I’ve created for them. I have literal foot-tall stacks of old drafts, notes, sketches, and lists that go back several years on several stories that are in progress. Right now, before getting elbow-deep in scattered scraps of paper, the thought of organizing them sounds fun.
That’s a lot of paper.
I’m going to hate myself in a few hours. You’ll see. I also have digital notes that need fact-checking and photo references to sort out.
All in all, I’m genuinely excited to get started on this. I’ve been wanting to do it for months, but with the deadline for Of Ice and Roses nipping at my heels all year, I felt I couldn’t justify the time working on retyping notes for a project I’m not actively writing.
The flaw in that logic is that I WILL be working on all of those projects next year. That’s right. My plan for 2023 is to complete a complete draft of four novels without committing to publishing any of them. I know I’ll get more done without a deadline and the pressure of making sure each novel is just right. I tend to write in creative bursts, and having several projects to bounce between means that while one project is simmering for a week or two, I can still work on the others. It’ll be interesting to see how it all works, and the foundation of that is to get the bones of the projects organized.
If you’re interested in exploring the two worlds I’m currently writing in, hop over to my Worlds page. There, you can follow links to my account on WorldAnvil, the hosting site, and explore book and series overviews, character bios, species, maps, locations, timelines, and more. My goal for November is to get an additional 30,000 words of facts, notes, and trivia up for people to explore.
What is something you want to know about the stories and worlds I write?
