Hello!
It's felt like forever since I posted. November was a bit of a whirlwind, and to be honest; I was using October to regain my focus on my writing. Let's talk about this year's NaNoWriMo.

I kept to myself this year. I have a 2.5-year-old at home all day, plus shuttling my 1st grader to and from school, attempting to keep house, and cook dinners. Despite all that, I hit my first ever 30-day writing streak! I was very proud of how I prioritized making time to write every day. This year was a bit different. Usually, during NaNo, I try to write at least 2,000 to 2,500 words per day as my goal is to finish as early as possible and then drop off the face of the writing earth, so to speak. I rarely wrote on the weekends during past NaNo's unless I was behind and needed to catch up. This year, if I was in the middle of a scene or wrapping a section up, I went over the usual word count goal, but most days, I aimed for about 1,700 - 1,800.

 
I believe the benefits of writing the smaller amount took some of the pressure I had put on myself in past years. On the one hand, aiming to finish on the 30th felt like I was running out of time. On the other hand, knowing I was writing each day felt good. I wanted to establish the habit of daily writing so that I could keep up with it, post-NaNo. While NaNo is a hard goal of writing 50,000 words, it's also the goal to complete a novel. In past years, I hit the 50k, but only twice did I reach the end of the book.

 
There is not a correct or an incorrect way to participate in NaNoWriMo. I cheer on those who wrote 20,000 ways the same way I applaud those who crossed the finish line on day-20. Writing in itself is always good.

 
What did I write this year? I've been working with my publisher on building my fan base for my upcoming release of the Light Keeper around Nov of 2022, and we discussed how I might benefit from a newsletter as opposed to only this blog. The recommendation was that I have something I can offer subscribers as an incentive to receive the newsletter. In my book, I have established that all the fairytales we know today are based on true events caused by faeries and ended by Light Keepers. For NaNo, I wrote those stories. I wrote one-dozen unique tales as told in the world I have created. In my tale, the "fairy godmother" sends Cinderella away and remains behind to punish the wicked family. In my tale, Rumpelstiltskin wins. According to my history, Sleeping Beauty was the love of the faerie prince's life, and he went to extraordinary measures to save her. Gnomes, not a witch, captured Hansel and Gretel, and I wrote the origin story for two of my beloved faerie characters.

 
I had fun writing so many amazing tales. Were all of them winners? Well, no. Several had great potential, though, and I'd be delighted to share a selection with future newsletter subscribers. After I launch my initial book, I might even dive deeper into those tales and release the whole collection as a separate book.

Now that NaNo is behind me until next year... I am working on my second revision of The Light Keeper, Book 2, while also reviewing the line edits from my publisher.

Happy Writing!