I found a lovely little blog post I’d like to share with you here. It’s a post by Fiction Factor about word count in fiction writing and the benchmarks for each type of fiction. Take a browse over those numbers.
Now, the reason why I’ve linked this to you, is that I don’t like the idea of NaNoWriMo being a pass or fail, win or lose affair. A lot of people don’t write for NaNo because they know that the month is going to be too crazy for them to make the 50,000 word mark. Folks, I invite you to get that idea right out of your head.
If you don’t make the 50,000 word mark, do not consider yourself a failure. Instead of looking at what you didn’t do, look at what you did accomplish. If you only write, say, 8000 words, congratulate yourself! You wrote a novelette. Got really busy and only managed 2000 words? Well pat yourself on the back; you got out a short story!
Look at these bench marks and celebrate each one. It doesn’t even matter if no one ever sees what you write this month. Practising your craft is never a waste of time. Ever.
Part of being an independent artist, or any manner of successful human being for that matter, is setting reasonable goals. So maybe this month is National Novelette Writing Month for you. So what? Write that novelette! Just don’t fall into the trap of “well I can’t do what everyone else is doing so I might as well not produce anything at all.” Write what you can and be proud of it. Now go make good art.
… you’re still here? Well okay, I guess I could give you an update or something.
So Dia de los Muertos is over and it was a wonderful celebration. I saw a lot of old friends I hadn’t seen in a year and met a bunch of new ones. Hurray for networking! Even more exciting, just as I was finishing my face paint, the power went out. I had to do my wife’s makeup by candlelight! It was kind of romantic though.
The makeup survived well all through the night, even after the consumption of pizza, too much candy, and Zombies and Corpse Revivers. (The latter being aptly named. I’m pretty sure it could raise the dead.)
Not bad for a job done in the dark. This was after the lights came back on, obviously.
In other news, I’m working on editing chapter 16 of Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy. I should have it back in my editor’s hands for a second run through by the end of this week. Yes, yes. I’m writing a novel and editing a novel at the same time. Because I’m crazy. Woo!
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