November: Anti-Nano and Mindful Writing

1. Anti-Nano
November is generally known as the month my family stares at me in wonder and shakes their heads as I dive into National Novel Writing Month. Generally, they think of me as a crazy person for this (except for my youngest sister, who occasionally participates, too).  I will not be participating in the official Nano this year, however, as the Untitled Werewolf Novel I began for Nano last year is still sitting in a sorry state of disrepair. I don’t think its a good idea at this juncture for me to try to jump into a new novel just because it’s shiny and new.

Instead I shall be participating in Anti-Nano, which just just like regular Nanowrimo, except that you can set whatever sort of writing goal you want, from rewrites to a series of drabbles. It’s nice in that you get to participate in the mayhem and feel the camaraderie, but at a pace and a goal that works for you. If you’re interested, you can go sign up here in the squidathon community.

The end result will be that my family will still be staring at my like I’ve drifted into madness and, hopefully, a second and less-rough looking draft of the Untitled Werewolf Novel.

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2. Mindful Writing Day
I will also be participating in Mindful Writing Day on November 1st. The premise is simple: Write a small stone (poem or prose) by paying proper attention to one thing and writing it down. It’s a lovely little challenge that I’m happy to be a part of. Already, I’m starting to look more at the world around me, gathering ideas as to what I might write about.

Mindful Writing Day will also coincide with the anthology A Blackbird Sings: a book of small poems being offered for free on the kindle for that day — a nice little tie-in promotion.

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Therefore, before November I have quite a few things I should do to prep. It would be nice if I could clear my palate by finishing up some edits on stories and sending them out, but what I really need to do is read through my existing Untitled Werewolf Novel drafts and begin a new set of outline and get myself in a general head space to be able to handle the workload coming my way.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]