Well, it’s November 2nd, and that means we’re officially into National Novel Writing Month territory, huzzah!

I’m sure most of you are aware about NaNo, but if not it’s a month long writing endeavor every November. A few years ago I wrote a huge post about here on the blog where I discuss the ins and outs of NaNo and some of my experiences with it over the years.

This year I’m super busy with a lot of other stuff going on, reading obligations, the blog, and events, so I was on the fence about participating in NaNo to begin with. But, I’ve at least attempted it ever year since 2005, so I didn’t want to break my long tradition either and decided to give it a try. It’s going to be tough. This first weekend I’m going to miss my local kick-off party (always a fun time, we have great municipal liaisons) because right now I’m at World Fantasy Convention. I’m also going to miss some prime writing time while away at the con.

So, right in the beginning I’m going to have a deficit I have to make up for and starting out in the negative could be a bit discouraging. Then, the second weekend we have in November is my Tea Party Book Club meeting so I’ll be spending Saturday cleaning and prepping and Sunday is the party/book club meeting. The first two weekends already booked! Not to mention keeping up with the blog and a couple of upcoming review requests.

So, what are my plans to overcome these obstacles? I plan to take my laptop to the library a few times a week after work. Getting out of the house to a nice quiet environment where I can concentrate really helps. I also may write during my lunch breaks at work. Also, I’m probably going to try and concentrate more on writing itself this NaNo and do less talking to my NaNo buddies like I did last year. I love my writing buddies! But I tend to spend way too much time checking in on facebook with everyone instead of utilizing that time for writing. I admit I am easily distracted so removing as many of those distractions as possible is probably a good idea.

The other thing that I’ve decided to do is have a smaller overall goal so I don’t put too much pressure on myself. I’m going to shoot for a total of 20,000 words and see how it goes. If I wind up making the goal or exceeding it, great! If I don’t, no big deal either. I do want to make my goal, of course, and I’m going to do my best to make it happen, but when I pressure myself I just trigger my anxiety which messes with my creativity and I get caught in a vicious cycle of ugh. So, just gonna take things day by day!

Next Friday I’ll check in with how things are going so far! I’ll be putting my Friday Favorite Five posts on hold until December and using Friday’s to talk about NaNo for the duration of November. Hope everyone doing NaNo has a great and productive month! Is anyone else participating? Happy writing!