To NaNo or not to NaNo

(Image of hand checking breast, reference to October breast cancer awareness month)

October:

• Breast cancer awareness month – I am very much aware of the existence of breast cancer, even without the pink merchandise thankyouverymuches
• Stoptober – Like that’s gonna happen this year and also I don’t drink much anyway
• Pumpkin Spice Latte Awareness Month – I am not in the US and I don’t do Starbucks anyway
• Hallowe’en Month – I am not in the US and we have corona so no Harry Potter theme party this year which sucks bigtime anyway
• (Feel free to add other themes for the month of October…)
• Preptober

Next month is November, otherwise known as NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, NaNoWriMo. Preptober means preparing for November, as you might have guessed. (We have yet to find a proper name for the December month when we edit…)

The big question every year since I registered for my very first NaNoWriMo (2009) is: Will I participate?

Pro: The feeling of having won, having accomplished the task of writing 50,000 words in a month, is kinda nice. Plus you have a 50,000 word story and develop the routine of writing every single day which is valuable.

Con: An average of 1,667 words every day means a sizeable time investment. It usually takes one to two hours, depending on my mood and ability to focus. It doesn’t take less than an hour in any circumstance. For 30 days straight, this is asking for serious investment. And it’s not like we have anything else to do, with work and twins and…

Well, we don’t have a social life at the moment so that, I guess, would go under ‘pro’.

The main question for me this year, however, is what to write? My primary work in progress is not suited for it because it requires something other than the volume-volume-volume approach of NaNo. That needs too much thinking and plotting to make 1,667 words a day. So that means a new WIP.

And then I thought: maybe I should work and publish online? On this blog? Since I have no intention of making a work that is for publishing, or indeed intended to have any kind of quality standard other than ‘hehehe’ I might as well, right? Thinking about this…

Question to my (few) readers: Would you even read it? Would you be willing to, for example, make plot decisions with/for me? A kind of real-time Choose your own adventure thing? Sounds kind fun, dunnit?