NaNoWriMo 2023 Progress Report
NaNoWriMo 2023: Distractions
OK. Two very talented writers starting off NaNoWriMo sounding a little unhinged. This does not bode well for the month to come.
C Z Tacks not only pitched, produced, and published an extraordinary speculative fiction anthology — Body of Work, go buy it everywhere good books are sold, such as the CSFG website at https://csfg.org.au/ — in six months, she also wrote the lead story which comes in for a little genre discussion in this first podcast episode. Horror, humour, ethics committee nightmare? I loved it.
But not as much as I enjoyed A D Ellicott’s story in that same collection, a gem of magic, love, and a strange talent.
These two team up, Tacks as a veteran WriMo, Addie as a NaNo virgin. Their journeys to 50 000 words — or not — promise to be full of fun and empty of sleep.
I had the privilege of brunching with both yesterday during a regular “accountability” session at the National Library of Australia where we talk about our writing projects and then — uh-oh — go and do some writing.
NaNoWriMo writing has one advantage over the regular stuff. There might be an awful lot of it but it doesn’t have to be good. In fact — in my own years of experience — the key word is “awful”. Just getting it done is the thing. That builds confidence in being able to write an actual novel, and as is pointed out in the podcast, simply doing a lot of something means you are going to get better at it.
There’s also a mention of the Lifeline Bookfair as a place to pick up books on writing. As one of the volunteers helping out one day a week to organise that enormous pile of books I wholeheartedly endorse this worthy cause. Buy good books cheap, spend your November nights making more. Win win!
I’m looking forward to more episodes in this podcast. The essence of good writing is conflict and I fondly anticipate that by the end of the month, the gloves will come off and the thing will be even more worth listening to than it is right now.
