Welcome to a new month! I like November, though I feel like it's a month with an identity crisis. October knows it wants to be all orange and reds, and changing leaves, and Halloween, and pumpkin spice everything. December knows it's going to eat, sleep, breathe, puke, ooze all this Christmas. November feels like it should be all cozy, and turkeys, and hot coco, and giving thanks, and football, and snuggly blankets. And it is sometimes. But if you walk though a department store starting today...it might as well be Christmas. And all we'll really hear about between now and Thanksgiving is Black Friday. So November is really just kind of a month in limbo...albeit and cozy month for blanket, candles, football, and giving thanks!
For as long as I've taught, November has also meant the fall play, and we'll open our production of "Fools" on Friday. I've been much calmer about this this year than last, mostly because it's a stage play instead of a musical, and there are far fewer things you have to worry about managing when there isn't singing, dancing, and an orchestra pit involved!
November is also National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWrMo. Authors who legitimately participate in NaNoWrMo are encouraged to write 2000 words a day for the whole month, thus amassing 60,000 words by the end of the month. 60,000 words is about the average length of a commercial novel. Therefore, theoretically if you completed the whole challenge, you would have reached novel length by November 30th.
I've tried doing this once before, but 2,000 words is actually quiet a lot to get down on paper everyday, and my schedule (read the aforementioned fall play!) doesn't always leave me a lot of extra time to sit, relax, and do any quality writing.
That said, those of you who have followed this blog for a while will remember that 'Write a Novel' is on my 30 before 30 list...and time is ticking. To be safe, I already have my bases partially covered in this regard. The last couple months I've worked on rewriting a novel I actually wrote while I was in college. Two summers ago, I also produced well over 60,000 words of a rough draft of the first installment of a would be series. I even sent it out for feedback and started a second draft. The list says "Write" a novel...not publish...I think I've probably done enough to check this off.
Nevertheless, I like to write, and November is a good time to do it as you're curled up with those cozy blankets watching football games! So I've been brainstorming out different writing projects that I could be working on, and I think I've settled on one for the month, and I might even use the blog as a place to keep track of some of it.
I was recently thinking about those moments when you tell a crazy story and someone says, "oh my goodness! You could write a book!" Looking back through my 5 years of blog posts, both those that were published, and those that I took notes on and drafted out but never finished, I found lots of such moments. Though I'm not sure that you could really string all those moments into one cohesive story. They just cover too many facets and areas of interests. That said...they do all fit into my own, personal story, so their must be some unifying elements. I think I've found this common thread, and I'm going to play with it and see where it goes. Like I said, stay tuned. Some of it might appear here first!
The final thing November is good for is sweatpants, slippers, and a warm cup of tea, which is where my evening is headed. I might suggest you settle in as well!
Happy Trails,
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