“Jenna,” you might say, “you’ve been a published author for seven years, surely you have some insight and wisdom to share!”
…ah. Not really.
The only thing I know for sure is how little I know. I’m constantly looking for new plotting methods and new ways to make my characters interesting, and I still feel like I only get it right mmmmaybe 25% of the time.
I have a lot of Nanowrimo shirts and wear them often, and whenever people ask me, “What’s Nanowrimo?” I say, “You know how people say, ‘Someday I’m going to write a novel’? Nanowrimo is your someday.” I really do believe the only way to learn to write is to write, and the only way to get better is to keep writing. And if you have written novels before, if November is business as usual for you, then Nanowrimo is a chance to push yourself to up your productivity* or be fed by the energy of thousands of people creating together.
Tomorrow night, I intend to watch some stop-motion Halloween movies and give out candy, so this will likely be the last blog entry for a while.
Good luck, y’all. We’re all in this together.
*True story: before my first Nanowrimo, I averaged about 200 words a day. It took me a year to write an 80,000 word story. Now, I feel lazy if I produce less than 1000 words in a day.