A mid-November update on NaNoWriMo and new short stories
I’m smack dab in the middle of yet another NaNoWriMo, right along with all those thousands of others brave enough (or foolish enough) to dive headfirst into this annual frenetic activity. For NaNo this year, I chose to do something a little different in November. Instead of writing something completely new, I decided I would take a “completed” draft from a previous NaNoWriMo (2011, to be exact) and spend the month working on revision. I figured if I could get a minimum of 50K words or 30 chapters edited over the course of the month, I’d consider that a win. So far, progress has been great, and my novel is moving another step closer to becoming a finished product. While it’s far from perfect at this point, it’s improving with each revised chapter.
On the short story front … first, thanks to all of you who took the time to read my last story and leave a comment. I appreciate your support, encouragement, and feedback. Second, I’ve got two different short stories I’m working on right now, though the pressures of November writing might make it hard to finish them as soon on time. One hasn’t even been started, but it needs to be finished and polished up by the end of the month. Ooops. Timing for the other is a bit more open-ended, which is nice. I have a partially written story from years ago already in place, so I hope to expand and complete it in time for that submission. Both should be fun projects.
Hope everyone’s having a wonderful November, filled with plans for the upcoming holidays. My favorite time of year …
–dp
Leave a reply to Dave Cancel reply
According to Dave 
I still wonder where I would publish short stories now. Would amazon be a good place? Magazines for them don’t seem as common…
Don’t know about the market for shorts in general, but for dark fiction, like I write, there are quite a few magazines, eZines, and anthologies that accept short fiction. I know some who have put their short stories together in a collection and put them on Amazon. I might do that someday, depending on whether I can find other places for my fiction. It won’t make much money, but then I’m not that worried about whether I do or not. Really, just getting them published is good enough for me 🙂
Good luck with your fiction! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Good luck with the revising, Dave. Sometimes that feels almost as intensive as the writing! Maybe there should be a NaNoRevMo…
I think there is a NaNoEdMo … National Novel Editing Month. Never participated though, so I can’t remember if comes right after NaNoWriMo or a month or two later. Those people think of everything 🙂 But I like Dave’s idea of using NaNoWriMo for revising. Whatever gets the work done …
I like both of those. NaNoRevMo or NaNoEdMo. Both great opportunities to get additional writing done, even if it’s not necessarily all new words.
Good for you, Dave! My NaNo project is from a novel I started years ago and (so far) this has been a great opportunity to bring it back to life. As in previous NaNos, I’ve been almost obsessive with writing so I can finish up before Thanksgiving and rest during the long weekend 😉 And very best of luck with getting your stories published. I hope to read more of your writing 🙂
Yes, I’ve been following your NaNo project. My plan is to go back and read it when the November craziness is all over. I agree – NaNo is an awesome time to get yourself focused on a previous project. I’ve been enjoying the process quite a bit, and it’s helping get things done. Thanks for the well wishes … best of luck to you as well. And thanks for reading my last story … hope you like the next ones, too.
Thanks, Dave. I appreciate that you’ve been following my project. It’s a new thing for me and the response has been interesting (and positive) 🙂
You are a busy man! Sounds familiar. 😊
Ha … yes. Now let’s just see if I can manage to get it all done 🙂