Author Skills | Writing Challenges

Freestyling my NaNoWriMo

No, I’m not writing a novel this month…

NaNoWriMo is the amazing international writing event where people try to first-draft a novel in a month. I say more about it here:

This month, I’ve been keeping track of my word count, and I hope to hit the 50,000 word target. However, I’m not writing a new novel!

Why? There are a bunch of reasons:

• Firstly, I have a bunch of short stories and projects that I’m eager to progress with, including Medium Adventurers League and the various ‘choose your own’ stories here on Medium.
• Secondly, I’ve actually got more than one complete novel that I haven’t even published yet! Sparta Online 3 is almost done bar the editing (check out the series here), and I’d like to publish my Royal Road web-novel The Tooth and Claw Guild at some point. I have a publishing backlog without adding a new project.
• Thirdly, I’ve done it before (‘winning’ NaNoWriMo in 2015, 2019 and 2021), so it’s not a kind of ‘personal challenge’ thing this time.
• Oh, and lastly, I have non-fiction to work on, too!

Taking all these things into account, I decided to freestyle NaNoWriMo. I’ll keep track of my (fiction) word count via the stories that I write and share on here, and see where I end up.

So, how’s progress?

No doubt about it — November can be a busy month.

In my education role, it’s a time of teaching and assessment, and of trying to get a lot of things sorted and finished off before the end of term. My kids and wife are really busy right now, too.

It definitely hasn’t been a month of amazing word counts!

All the same, my word totals have kept more or less on track, mainly via the Medium Adventurers League stories that I love sharing (and playing). Although part of a game, many of these extend to 5k–10k words overall, and some could almost be stand-alone short stories.

If you want a taster, you could check out the starter story here, though for some of my recent work that has contributed to my NaNo word count, this is one of my favourites so far:

I hope it feels atmospheric, with a good amount of world building, but also quite fast-paced and funny (right?!).

That was my intention… And most of the quests in the game are similar.

And to NaNo…?

When I had first heard of NaNoWriMo, I assumed that reaching a total of 50,000 words in the month meant success, and not doing so meant failure.

I’ve mellowed over time.

Now I can see that if you only wrote half or a third of the target, it would still be awesome progress.

And besides, people use the community spirit and competitive nature of the event for all sorts of reasons — writing scripts, academic work, books of short stories, or more.

As for me, I decided to only count my new fiction writing in November, and things that could eventually morph into a book of short stories. Not the non-fiction, nor blog posts like this.

My word count lagged well behind at a couple of points, but lately I have got more or less back up to pace (the standard being 1,666 words per day).

You can see my current stats here:

So, it being 26 Nov today, I need to push to the finish line…

Or not. This is free-styling!! 😆

A shoutout to fellow NaNoWriMo participants on Medium, many of whom are also doing the challenge their own way, and setting targets that work for them. Some have written about the journey for this publication:

• Jay C Wells has shared his progress and struggles here.
• Selina Miyasia has shared weekly progress stories, e.g. this.
• Bradan Writes Stories has discovered a new publishing platform.

Some other Medium participants that I’m aware of, either as buddies on that site/Discord or from seeing articles here: Zane Dickens the Instigator, FJCMontenegro, Kathy K, Samuel Kenneth Kauffman, Kristina God, Joy Nibbs, Samantha Lazar, Molly Freytag. There are probably loads that I don’t know about. Good luck all!

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Will you make it to 50k, or do you have a different target? Let us know in the comments!

Psst… before you go, you can find more of my articles about blogging here, as well as guidance on creative writing right here. I also write fiction on Medium — check out some examples in this list! ⚔️