It’s not happening this year. That’s about as succinctly as I can put it.
If you’ve been checking my word counts at all (link at the bottom of every page), you’ll have noticed that I haven’t written all week. I’ll be honest, it’s been a very stressful week for me. And maybe for you, too. Not the best week to start something like NaNo.
So what happened?
I finished a draft of a novel on October 28th, three days before November. I thought I could whip an outline together over those three days and get to work November 1.
That didn’t happen.
By November 1 I had the bones of an outline. Maybe 50% of an outline? It was there, but not THERE. I couldn’t start, not with so many holes and so many empty questions. Maybe if I wrote literary fiction that would be enough, but mystery? I need things nailed down. I need to know whodunit and howdunit and whendunit and wheredunit and all the dunit’s.
No worries, I thought, I’ll start a day or two late.
Nope. November 3rd was the election. And no matter if you fall on the wrong side or the right side, it’s been a stressful week for all of us. I have not been writing this week. I have not been doing much of anything besides refreshing the results and ignoring my story.
So now it’s day six of NaNo, and I have maybe 70% of an outline. Still not enough to start writing, and NaNo is basically 1/4 over.
If I finished my outline today, could I still do NaNo? Maybe. Will I finish my outline today? I doubt it.
NaNoWriMo has turned into more of a NaNope for me in 2020. I’ll keep this in mind for next year and give myself a little more time to get an outline together.
Truthfully, I never expected to do NaNo this year anyway. I thought my last novel would take me through November to finish, but I finished a month early.
I do really like this outline I’m working on though, and I’m still going to write the book. I might just start in the middle of November rather than at the beginning. Maybe I can be done by Christmas. That seems reasonable.
Happy Friday.