Well, it’s five days until the start of NaNoWriMo! What is it, you ask? The name stands for National Novel Writer’s Month. This is a sort of writing challenge, directed at yourself; you get from November 1st to November 30th to write a story (or stories) worth 50,000 words. I normally try to take the challenge every year, and have been doing so for four years now. Not once have I succeeded; usually exams or finals or something would come up and make me put everything aside. Honestly, I expect them to do so again.

So what I’m going to do, rather than “officially” enter this year, is enter in a sort of unofficial way. You see, the point of NaNoWriMo is quantity over quality, making you go that extra step and put everything out from your mind onto paper before you go and edit it. You’re aiming to write 50,000 words; it doesn’t have to be one cohesive story. I’ve seen several people submit multiple stories and still hit the 50,000 word mark successfully. So what I’m going to do is apply that to my commissions; it gives me even more incentive to finish them in a timely manner. Currently I’m in the middle of  addylad’s commission, and I will mark what point I am at the end of Sunday, October 31st. From there, I will be keeping a record in my journal heading of how many words I’ve covered so far, and will be using each of my commissions towards that goal of finishing NaNoWriMo this year, even unofficially. After all, the only reward for a completion is a certificate. I’m willing to pass that up to still undertake that challenge.

So keep an eye on this journal; you can see how much progress I make every day. Hopefully you’ll see me zipping along, and you can cheer me on the whole way!