#mini nano

my approach to this is going to be: in my creative writing class, one of our midterm grades is to compete in one of three writing related contests, one of which is NaNoWriMo. HOWEVER, since our class has a high percentage of disabled people (both physically and mentally) who are incredibly prone to burnout when it comes to participating in traditional NaNo, our teacher (also disabled so she Gets It) edited the challenge slightly this year to make it easier for us to participate.

instead of writing 40,000 words in one month, our goal is to write 10,000 words a month for four months, starting in August and ending with 40k at the end of November. this is much more manageable and realistic for us, it still provides a challenge, and it also means the participants write an entire novel in four months, which is still a big deal for obvious reasons especially considering the majority of the class are very much amateur writers.

i've adopted this much more relaxed model while writing salt & the sea and will probably continue to use it next year regardless of if our teacher keeps it in the rotation for our midterm grade or not. if traditional nano has been too exhausting/intimidating for you in previous years for whatever reason like it has been for me, you're welcome to join me in participating in this unofficial offshoot of it!

another thing: i am a fast writer. i write a lot and i write very quickly. however, due to burnout, depression, the time of year that NaNo happens in, and a couple other things, 40k words in one month is a goal that i simply cannot hit in any way without hurting myself a LOT right now and that's okay. Reaching a goal means nothing if you destroy yourself in the process of getting there. It's okay to make a huge challenge easier for yourself in order to accommodate for your own disabilities, workflow, etc. or even just so that you aren't put off trying in the first place!

I don't have a name yet for this edited NaNo challenge and it probably won't go anywhere which is okay but I'm thinking of referring to it as Mini NaNo, Mitosis NaNo, or something else that preferably emphasizes it's an unofficial offshoot of the challenge.

(my) monthly goals:

Start: Aug 1st (you can dust off an old draft or concept if you'd like)

August 31st: 10,000 words

September 30th: 20,000 words

October 31st: 30,000 words

November 30th: 40,000 words

Current word count as of Sep. 2nd (started this draft on May 30th, I know, I cheated a bit): ~19,000

I forgot that I’d planned to do a mini Nano so instead, midway through the month, I decided to start my own writing challenge to do 10k of writing to Everything Was White in 2.5 weeks.

And bitch I diddddd.

I ended up finishing two partially-written chapters and then wrote 5k of a third chapter.

My mini-Nanowrimo project was a success! I managed to write a little every single day. My initial goal was 300 words a day or 9000 words in the month and I finished the month with 7 chapters and over 15000 words.

I've decided (nice and late, but whatever) that I'm going to try a mini-nano this month.

In essence, I'm going to try to write at least 250 words of fiction every day, regardless of what I'm writing.

I'll post my progress here, because that does hello. So here we go, and wish me luck!

I just hit 7500 words today - and I upped my goal for November to 10,000 words. With working nights, my birthday, Thanksgiving, and going to San Francisco to see Harry Potter, I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do much more than 10,000 this month, but we’ll reevaluate as I get closer. I really am a visual “check box that goal” kind of person, so getting to track my progress gives me joy and motivation.