Writer’s Corner: NaNoWriMo No Mo

I look forward each year to participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge in November. In fact, I depend on it to get a major portion of one novel completed and I schedule it into my production calendar. Even if I do not make the word count for the set goal at the end of the month, I’m still that much closer to a finished novel, so it is a win-win situation.

November 2022 produced The Rock Star & The Outlaw, book 1 in my Time Travel adventure series. In 2023, I used it to get a start on Sarah, book 2 in my Women in the West adventure series. 2024 brought a good start for the second book in my Time Travel series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw 2: Doubles Visions, which will be released early in 2026. This year’s NaNoWriMo was scheduled to create the third book in the Women in the West series, also scheduled for release in 2026.

So, you can imagine my surprise when a few days before Halloween, I’d done my research, I had my outline, and I went to sign up for the challenge and found that NaNoWriMo is no more. Apparently, the traditional challenge which has been around for over a decade and attracted writers from near and far, had an incident involving AI material last year, unbeknownst to me, which turned the whole event topsy-turvy. I still am not sure what the problem was, or why it was so serious as to shut down the whole event permanently. I was too busy panicking as I searched the web for my favorite month-long writing event, to read any more in depth than that.

What I did find was a new event called Novel November which looked to similar to NaNo, so I signed up. After I had begun setting up my dashboard, it became apparent that they were expecting me to upload my manuscript so they could keep track of my word count, instead of self-monitoring, like NaNo. So… ProWritingAid will have direct access to the words I write? That made me pause.

All of the articles I’ve read about the hullaballoo over AI snatching authors’ works illegally for training, etc…, I had to wonder how smart that would be. Then, add to that, the fact that something happened which involved AI writing, which shut down NaNo after last year’s challenge, and doing the challenge through this site seemed like a a really bad idea. So, that’s as far as I got with that.

I started thinking about the aspects of NaNo which I found valuable. It was always fun to earn their little badges, but that and the word count was all I really used. For me, NaNoWriMo was a motivator that offered achievable goals and helped me keep track of my progress. I never really used the community aspects of the challenge, although I did adopt a writing buddy one year and we held each other accountable, sort of. I realized that both of the aspects I used most during the challenge, the ones I depended on, were actually things I could do myself pretty easily.

So, this past November, I ran my own personal writing challenge. It was the same challenge NaNo set; 50,000 in 30 days. That’s a good start on any novel, and it’s enough to enable me to finish the book within the next few months. And there was nothing stopping me from setting my own goal and keeping track of my own word count.

So, that’s what I did. On November first, I began writing on Marta. I’m keeping track of my word count on a sheet of notebook paper. I am maybe not quite as disciplined as I have been in past years during NaNo, but I’m following the same principles. I sit down to write every single day, utilizing every spare minute that I can to write.

I’m a realist, however, and I learned long ago that you can’t always put life on hold, so my writing times are spread out with ten minutes here, thirty minutes there. Of course, I try to get in as many hour, or two hour, stretches as I can. So, on days when I have to go out and work in the real world, and can’t stay in my world of fiction, I may not get as many words in. I don’t always make my daily word count goal, and I might be lagging behind in the overall goal, even on the days when I do make it. But, again, any number of words I get down adds to my overall word count and moves my story forward.

I am writing this post on November 26, the day before Thanksgiving, and to date, I have 39, 298 words down. If I had made the word count every single day, the expected word count by the end of this day is 43, 342, so I still have a ways to go, but the story line is coming along nicely. Where the first two books in the Women in the West series had long periods when the protagonists must survive alone in the wilderness, with inner dialog to carry the story, Marta is surrounded by a full cast of characters on her journey with lots of external dialog. The characters are diverse and colorful, and they find themselves in some unusual situations.

I don’t know how many words I will have by the time this post is published, on December first, or how many words I will have left to type. I’m sure this story will not be completed at 50,000 words, since they haven’t yet reached their destination with over 40,000 words. Whether I reach my goal or not, Marta will be scheduled to be released in June of 2026.

**Update: It is December 1st and I did not reach my writing goal for November, but I do have 47,651 words toward the story of Marta. That’s not a bad start. As I’ve said before, any way you look at it, a 50,000 word challenge is a win-win for me. 🙂

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders and The D.I.Y. Author writing resource.

Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press, where she edits and publishes two short fiction anthologies and one poetry anthology every year amidst her many writing projects. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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This segment of “Writer’s Corner” is sponsored by the Robbie’s Inspiration blog site, where you can find ideas on writing and baking with hostess, Robbie Cheadle.