Flash Nano/Nanowrimo 2021 Final Update

November is over. I certainly didn’t write every day, nor did I ‘win’ Nanowrimo. However, I wrote twenty-four stories in thirty days. So I definitely did well. My final word count was 10213. I accomplished my goal, which was to write as many pieces of flash fiction as possible, on as many days as I could.

At first, I didn’t see myself getting anywhere close to a story a day. Honestly, I would have been happy with 5 or 6. You can imagine how thrilled I am to end up with as many as I did.

Some days I wrote more than one story and other days I didn’t even look at my pencil. There were plenty of times I didn’t think I had a story in me at 11 pm but decided to try anyway and got great stuff out of it. The main thing is I didn’t let myself stand in my own way, though I tried a few times.

I hope to keep up this momentum and keep cranking out fiction but not every day. I don’t want to burn myself out again after finally waking up my muse again.

I’ll probably keep the same schedule of writing as I did all month: writing late. During the day I work on making plushies and bags so there isn’t time to write then. In the mornings I suffer through allergy hell, which delays the start of my workday. It’s not smart to work with needles and machinery when you can’t see through tears. I bought some eye drops that might help but nothing else has so I don’t have a lot of confidence there.

My allergy crying normally stops around lunchtime so I think I’ll try writing in the mornings again as well as late at night. I could type with my eye closed so difficulty seeing the keyboard or monitor isn’t an issue. If I want to write manually I can keep using a pencil. Tears can only do so much damage and my handwriting is horrendous so not much change there.

Now that I have a little confidence back I need to work on motivation and discipline.

So, for me, Nanowrimo and Flash Nano 2021 were both successes. I got what I wanted out of it and I’m happy. Hopefully next year there will be in-person events and even more stories. Until then I’ll keep writing and updating.

Flash Nano Update Day 14

Flash Nano is going pretty well for me. I haven’t managed to write a story every day but I did write 16 stories in thirteen days. This is the most my muse has been active in a long time. I don’t know my word count because I didn’t count the last 3 or 4 stories but I doubt I’m over 5000.

Nanowrimo word counts mean nothing to me now. They haven’t in several years. What I look for every November is to get back to writing regularly. I especially need it this year.

After all the things that happened to stop me from writing, I could really use this. What a confidence boost it is to write so much! Obviously, I don’t expect to write every day from now on but I do hope I’ll find a way to write as often as I can. For so long I wanted to write but couldn’t. Now I can write but I lack my previous discipline. I’m headed in the right direction thanks to this challenge.

As for the content, well, I don’t love every story but there are a few real gems in there. The ones I don’t love have potential (except one). Even the one I wrote that isn’t truly flash could turn into a great longer story. If I have trouble coming up with a new story any time during the rest of the month I intend to add to that starter.

The most encouraging thing to happen is I keep finding myself coming up with new ideas, plot twists, etc for novels I started before my time of tribulation, otherwise known as the two-ish years gabapentin fogged up my head, stole my concentration, and smothered my muse. I thought I’d never get back to those stories. I’m not all the way there but finding new ways to mess up my protagonists’ lives is amazing!

I’ll post a couple more updates before the end of the month. I’ll even take the time to count my words by then. Maybe.

Flash Nano Update

I’m writing! Since this is the first steady writing to come out of me in a very long time, I’m a bit overly excited about it. I can’t say I’m anywhere close to Nanowrimo word count goals but who cares? Not me.

Six stories in as many days are sitting in my spiral waiting for me to edit them (after Nano is finished). That’s something to celebrate for me. Even better, they don’t all suck. Some do. One, in particular, is complete trash, but I like most of them. Each one gives me something to work with. You can’t make a story great if you don’t have anything written.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to write a piece of flash fiction every day this month but I know I’ll try. Accomplishing this so far gave my confidence a huge boost. The more confidence I have in my ability to write, the more I will write.

Also, I finished a book! It’s the first one in probably a year. I’m halfway through the next. I got so into this one I’ve been reading it while on the elliptical at the gym. In fact, reading while on that machine has enabled me to ignore the clock, and each day I go for a little longer. Bonus!

I feel like I’m getting myself back again. My muse is more active and I’m thinking about stories more often. I was running through ideas while grocery shopping yesterday. When I took a break to eat lunch I ended up writing a very short piece of flash fiction. 121 words, which I will edit down to a 100-word story. The story absolutely had to come out of me right then in the middle of the day while out and about. That hasn’t happened in two years, at least!

So everything is going well. My grand total word count is only 2,872 but it feels like a million. Fingers crossed I’ll have hundreds more to update you on later in the month!

On a side note, I got to use the word ‘haboob’ in a story