October is on it’s way out and my favorite time of year nears–NaNoWriMo!
Yes, that nail-biting, angst-ridden, why-in-hell-did-I-sign-up-for-this-again excitement that is National Novel Writing Month. This will be my sixth-year participating and even though 2018 has been a rather tumultuous year between a cancer diagnosis and starting a new business, I can’t NOT participate.
This year I’m actually wrapping up my final month at my job at Healthy Start, one I’ve had since 2011 (2009 if you count my volunteer work and internship). It’s not that I’m leaving, exactly. The cancer diagnosis and subsequent medical bills have spurred me into taking a giant leap of faith; I’ve branched out on my own as a freelance contractor. Kinda scary to be honest.
My boss has been cool enough to hire me as a consultant where I’ll basically be doing much of the work I did as an employee (grant writing, project management, social media management, content, and techie stuff–basically all the cool stuff). BUT I’ve taken on several clients outside of Healthy Start, adding podcast producing and author support to my list of services.
This change allows me the freedom and flexibility to spend more time with my kids–go to school events, pick them up and help with homework, and generally BE present before they’re old enough to move out and I’m wondering WTF. It also allows me more time to write and work on my businesses (cause now there’s two, LOL).
The point is (I was getting to it!) I have quite a bit of paid time off accrued and I’m using almost all of it in November! Pretty cool, huh? So with the timing just TOO perfect, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to torture myself yet again in the effort to write 50,000 words in 30 days or less.
But the most exciting–and challenging–part? I’m being a rebel this year. My goal isn’t to work on a new project (although I have two non-fiction projects I’m tinkering with–shh!) it’s to finish an old NaNoWriMo project. I’m revising Escaped (Burned prequel) which was a NaNoWriMo project from 2016 and–if I’m super productive–I’ll revise Divided (Burned #4) as well. (Remember these babies?)
Keep in mind it’s not all fun and games–I still have three kids and two businesses to keep running. One of which has several clients who still need support. And I’ve got a handful of meetings to wrap up projects at Healthy Start, so shit still needs to get done and I can’t devote every minute to writing and revising in the Burned world. But I’m hoping to make excellent headway and (fingers crossed) get both books published in 2019. I still have another procedure scheduled in March (which is apparently just a part of my life now) so there’s a real risk things need to be diverted, but I’m giving it my all.
What about you? Are you NaNo-ing this year? If so, look me up and send me a buddy request! My username is JameeT (never would have guessed that one, huh?)
I’ll leave you with this lovely tidbit from the late, great David Bowie, Rebel, Rebel, which was the inspiration for this year’s NaNoWriMo.
Bleed. Write. Repeat. 