This will be my seventh year attempting to complete National Novel Writing Month, and I am determined that it will be my most successful yet. November is a tough month for me — in addition to Thanksgiving, my birthday also falls right in the middle, so I have a tendency to choose fun with family and friends over getting good writing done. My goals for NaNoWriMo 2017 are modest. I’ve found in the past year that setting moderate, bite-size goals instead of lofty ones is a recipe for success.

My Good Reads book challenges have always failed spectacularly because 50 books in a year is, frankly, unattainable for me. This year, I went small: 17 books in 2017. I hit that goal in June, so I added another 17. I’m probably not going to hit that, but I figure a stretch goal is just that — something extra you strive for after hitting your target. I’m proud of myself for getting so much good reading in this year. It’s been an effort to push myself to put away my phone on the train or turn off Netflix an hour before bed and pull out a book instead.

So, I am taking that small goal approach to NaNo. This is what I hope to achieve in the coming 30 days:

1. I want to finish We Tried to Keep Them Out and put that series to rest. I am planning to write a third and possibly fourth installment, which will conclude the story. At some point, I am likely going to thread all individual parts together for presentation as a novella.
2. I want to write at least 15,000 new words for my ongoing novel The Devil You Know. 50,000 words would be amazing, but I know myself, and I know that 15,000 is far more attainable.

I will be posting here to track my progress and note any successes or roadblocks I hit. I’m also active on the NaNoWriMo website under joywritesfiction. Look me up 🙂

Depending on how things shake up in the next two days, there’s a possibility that I’ll crank out that third installment of We Tried to Keep Them Out before the clock starts for NaNo. I’ve got Halloween movies and an elaborate costume at play, along with plenty of writing and other work to do at my real job, so we’ll see.

Happy writing (and happy Halloween!)

Joy