As I’m writing this, there are just hours remaining before the 2017 edition of NaNoWriMo begins. Writers all over the world are prepping their stories, ready to start writing at midnight November 1st. In fact, depending on the time zone, some have already begun.

The last few weeks, I’ve been going back and forth on whether to participate or not. Unlike last year, when I didn’t feel the need to write a new story and I was perfectly happy with my 500 words a day goal, this year I actually have story, Intervention, that needs to be written. In fact, I really want it to be written. Yet, I have hesitated.

Until today. It’s simple, really. I won’t be participating. This year, I just don’t have the time. There’s just too much else going on, including a lengthy vacation, where I just don’t feel that it would be appropriate to throw 50,000 words into the mix. So, I’m going to sit out NaNoWriMo 2017 and aim to participate in one of the Camp NaNoWriMo’s instead. One way or another, Intervention will be written.

However, my lack of participation doesn’t mean I won’t be doing any writing. I expect to continue to participate in the Monthly Twitter challenge as much as I can, although understandable during my vacation, I expect to do more reading than writing. My plan is even to not posting any blog posts either and focus primarily on two things:

The Descent

The Wattpad story that I started writing earlier this year continues to come alive as I write it and it’s an interesting journey. Although it’s a story that may never see its way into a proper book format, it is very much a learning experience and one I want to see through to the end. So, I’ll keep working on the story, post chapters on Wattpad every week and go from there. From a writing perspective, I do expect to make some pretty major progress with this story this month, since it’ll be my only writing project in November.

The Online Writing Log

In the two weeks since the beta of the Online Writing Log was made available to the public, I’ve had a tremendous amount of feedback, from bug fixes to feature requests. Since some of the current beta users are using it to track their NaNoWriMo progress, next month should be an interesting month. I have some features I’m still working on that will appear throughout the month and my plan is to keep working on the app as the month goes on. If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo and you’re still looking for a good way to track your progress, you’re welcome to check it out at https://www.onlinewritinglog.com. Be sure to leave me your thoughts through the feedback pages.

And there you have it. For those of you that are embarking on the month-long journey to write a novel, I wish you the best of luck. Remember, just keep writing. It doesn’t matter how it comes out the first time around. There’s always time to edit later.