NaNoWriMo
Well, hello there! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I know I’ve still kept my Reedsy short stories updated, but other than that I’ve been AWOL. The reason is that I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo throughout November! For those of you who don’t know what it is, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month. It’s a lot… but, as of last night, I officially completed the challenge!
I am super-proud of myself for having ‘won’ this year’s NaNoWriMo. I participated in the challenge once before, and came away with my tail between my legs. The first draft of my novel is now 3/4 complete! I aim to maintain the pace I set during November, and hope to have a fully-polished manuscript at some point next year.
For those of you who are stats nerds like me, I’ve included a screenshot of my November writing stats to give you a bit of a chuckle. I flew back home to the UK to attend my brother’s wedding in November — you can clearly see this in the dent in my progress! But, I managed to claw my way back, tooth and nail! It just goes to show, no matter how far ‘behind’ you feel you are, if you put the work in, you can still succeed.
A Very Bite-Sized Xmas
And on to my next project! Back in October I wrote a little piece for my Bite-Sized Horror section for Halloween, consisting of daily ‘bite-sized’ 99-word stories. Well, this Christmas, I’ve decided to do the same! The title of the series is Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Christmas, and every day I’ll be posting a little section of it — all the way up until the 25th!
Unlike my Bite-Sized Halloween story, Yule Be Sorry will be made up of daily stanzas, to form one large poem. I think I did the 99-word story idea to death, and wanted to try something new! I’m not much of a poet — I consider myself to be more of a storyteller… but the idea sounded fun, so we’ll see how it goes!
When I finished my Bite-Sized Halloween piece, I made a post commenting on my lack of preparation in advance, and how if I were to ever do such a thing again, I’d plan it out ahead of schedule… well, that didn’t work out. At all. Mainly due to time constraints and other commitments (i.e. NaNoWriMo). So, much like the Halloween piece, this Christmas piece will be written on the fly, and made up as I go along.
Well, that’s about it, guys! I’m glad to be back, after a month away, and I’m super-excited to see where Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Christmas will take me! (Part one was posted this morning!)
So, look out for a man in a red suit, and keep your ears open for the jingling of bells — it may not be the jolly fellow you are expecting…
Joshua G. J. Insole 
Wow, when you said you had to fight tooth and claw you weren’t lying. Five days down in the middle there it must have been so easy to give up. Well done for fighting back, many wouldn’t of.
Haha, yeah, it was a bit rocky for a while! Thanks again, Chris 🙂
CongratZ on completing NaNo. And you managed to squeeze in traveling and a wedding? Totally commendable.
That sounds like a great idea. People are doing “Blogmas”, but I never thought of my blog as a place that can be turned into something Christmasy. But this is a pretty neat idea. I might have to try it next year. If I remember and have some time.
Thanks very much! It did get a bit chaotic, but I’m glad I persisted. 🙂 And thanks, I thought I’d give it a go, see how it works out. It’s a bit of an experiment, really.
Most definitely. One can learn a lot about themselves and their writing style through NaNo.