Just Taking Notes

This November, I’m incredibly anxious about a lot of things. The election tomorrow is obviously a big one – I’ve donated, written letters, text banked, and talked about the importance of voting nonstop, but I am terrified and the pit in my stomach will not go away. We’ve also got Thanksgiving, which we’re not going home for this year, which brings its own kind of anxiety about letting people down in the name of keeping them safe and keeping us sane. And then, of course, the increasing number of COVID cases we’re seeing across the country. I sometimes wish I could be blissfully ignorant about everything going on, but I don’t actually think we do well as a society when that’s the case, so here we are. Me full of dread and you reading about it.

One thing I am not (as) anxious about this November is writing. I have decided, for the third time, to sign up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and this time I am really committed. I have an outline, some questions I want to try to answer, and some rough descriptions of characters. I am not totally at ease here since fiction is not my normal genre, but I am excited for a challenge. I also haven’t entirely decided if this was brilliant of me to sign up this year (great distraction, a goal to focus on!) or completely idiotic (how distracted are you going to be after the election!? And with a toddler at home!?). 

Anyway, it’s Day 2 and I’ve only written like 600 words after I got through brainstorming a few scenes yesterday, so we’ll see how this goes! 

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Share your tips or your topic for your project – I’d love to hear them!