NaStoWriMo and Monthly Writing Update

Monthly writing update first: Didn’t go as well as it could have. I was pleased with the stories I put out for the Game, and the surprise Halloween story (no link, just look down), if not a prize winner, was a nice little treat, but the one I wrote for publication is almost a cop-out. It’s about a page long and needs severe editing, and in reality was written as a fun piece and was only elevated to Piece-of-the-Month status when nothing else worked out for me (it's called "Old Roger," btw). Editing of Aftermath from last month was also basically at a standstill, though some occurred. Verdict: Technical Success, as I am still on the “story per month” track of the plan, and I never actually firmly tacked on an “edit a story per month” requirement. Still, a failure in spirit.

Which leads me to NaStoWriMo. As you may well know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), in which a bunch of totally crazy people promise to write a novel in a month and then spend the month frantically scribbling and thinking of reasons to renege. Carrie, of course, is one of those crazy people, though she will likely be sidetracked by editing that totally awesome little novel of hers so that Delacorte will put it on the Spring, rather than Summer, 09 calendar.

Every year when NaNo rolls around (okay, this is year 3), Carrie pressures me to do it. And every year I tell her that I’m not ready to take on a novel just yet. And this year I echo that, but I am still going to make an effort to get myself writing more. NaNo requires about 50,000 words in the month (not a full novel—that would be crazy). I propose to make this my own personal National Story Writing Month (thus NaStoWriMo), wherein I will write 25,000 words worth of short stories!

That amounts to about 850 words per day. So far, I’m one day in, and I’ve done 350 (but I seriously thought it was at least a thousand at the time, scout’s honor). But I’m up to the challenge. If I can actually pull this sucker off, I should be able to get ahead of schedule and devote December solely to editing, which would be useful. Story Game stories will count, by the way, but those are usually only a thousand or two each anyways.

All right, wish me luck, I’ma gonna need it. Writesylvania, here I come!