It’s been busy around these parts. But the gearing up to the holiday-heavy end of the year always is. Here’s what I’ve been up to, including prepping for NaNoWriMo 2021, a few spooky stories published to Vocal, and qualifying for the NYCMidinight second round.

NaNoWriMo 2021

For those of you who haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, this topsy turvy acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month. That’s right. Participants attempt to write 50k-words in November. This may seem like an unattainable goal at a glance, but in actuality, if one were to sit and write 1,600 words a day for 30 days, you can easily reach 50k by the end of the month.

Some of you may be saying, “Woah! 1,600 words is a crazy amount.” And you’d be correct. Most writers just starting have to work their way up to writing over 1,000 words in one day. It can be hard to get your thoughts onto the page. But we aren’t striving for perfection. We’re aiming for, ‘I got it written.’ No editing. No agonizing over punctuation, especially the dreaded comma. Heck, if you can ignore the horrible red line of doom announcing, ‘you spelled it wrong, genius,’ more power to you.

This is my maiden voyage into the world of NaNoWriMo, and I’m spending October (aka Preptober) preparing for the challenge. If you, too, are planning on giving NaNoWriMo a shot, AutoCrit has some great resources for NaNoWriMo. And of course, there’s the NaNoWriMo official website, where you can register your project, track your word count, find friends, and build a community to rally your buddies.

The Girl with the Demon Spider is an urban fantasy, paranormal, cozy mystery.

NYCMidnight

My story, Escape, qualified me for the next round in the NYCMidnight writing contest. This contest isn’t like most. This contest challenges writers to create a short story in a particular genre, using a specific word, and take place in a particular location.

My first round story, Escape had to be a comedy, contain a leash, and take place in an indoor pool. This 2k-word story was a challenge indeed. But I made it through to the next round.

My next story had to be a Thriller, containing a sugar cube, at a birthday party. Thus, Old Fashioned was born. Results for the second-round qualifiers will be posted on October 25, 2021. Wish me luck!

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