November is here!

Hello to all my vivacious readers. I took another hiatus. Work always gets busy, plus travel for work can be a little hectic. But good news is that I have still been writing on my fantasy novel. Definitely growing the story and did a lot of rewriting because I was not happy with what I had previously written. I have a title and a working cover for the novel.

As many may know, November marks the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as some may call it. This was really how I got my start in writing, especially with The Runner. This year, though, may participants are not working through the organization of NaNoWriMo because of several new items. I am “softly” participating, but not as aggressively as I did back in 2015. Things have changed since then, and I believe the organization has changed hands as well. Part of the lack of participation is the organization’s stance on allowing AI to assist in writing. I am a bit on the fence about using AI because I believe it does have certain tools that can help with writer’s block and such. I think where most issues are stemming from is many participants are using the AI to actually write their novels instead of using the old noggin.

Another aspect that has changed since 2015, and I slowly began to notice was the lack of the use of the forums. I think the forums were an amazing feature. I joined my local Athens forum back in the day and would post where I was having issues or celebrating a certain word goal. It was a great place for community. I noticed about a year or two ago that the forums had been deleted or completely moved due to inactivity (which did seem odd since NaNoWriMo only really happened once a year, who would be on a site that is mainly used in November outside of that?). So the interest is no longer there, but I am writing this November to help me get a huge chunk of writing completed for my novel.

Again, part of this journey is discovering the characters and learning their story and where each puzzle piece fits within the entire aspect of the novel. It is good to get back into my original stomping grounds of fantasy, where my love for reading… and writing began. The goal is to get all the words out, complete the story, and then deal with editing when it comes to it. (And we all hate the editing)

I hope to reveal an excerpt soon, but until that time, have a wonderful week.