agilebrit | It's NaNo time! (Reply)

And NO, I am not participating.

I attempted it once. I got about six thousand words out of it before life interfered and it ground to a dismal halt.

I mean, who the hell decided that it should be in November, for God's sake? Smack in the middle of an incredibly busy holiday season, where I'm actually expected to interact with my family and travel hundreds of miles to see them as well! Churning out 1,667 words a day during November is patently impossible for me.

Not only that, I'm not sure I even have a novel in me. My Muses seem to prefer short form. The longest fanfic I ever did was "Mustard Seed," and that capped out at about 35K words. Now, all the stories taken as a whole in the MustardVerse might put it over novel-length (I haven't actually checked), but they're discrete parts of a series, not a whole--each one can be read as a standalone with the proper "previouslies" introduction. The longest origific I've done skated in at under 10K words (and is being published soon!).

So. That, in a nutshell (or possibly a teal deer; you decide), is why I'm not participating in NaNo.

That being said, for those of you on my flist who are participating? Go, you! Getting the words on the screen is half the battle. You might be churning out crap, but crap can be edited into not-crap. A blank screen, not so much.

I'll be over here on the sidelines, waving pompoms. As my friend