Update: “One for NaNo”
Filed Under (Short fiction, Writing Stuff) by Phy on 13-11-2005
It’s never easy to admit defeat, but here it is.
On the first of November, 2005, I started the “Four For NaNo” challenge with the idea of switching up the intense, one-month “stretch” goal writing challenge. Instead of one unpublishable novel, I was going to try to produce four publishable short stories with the story genres dictated by visitors to the ole’ writing blog (emphasis on “publishable”). All things being equal, it looked completely do-able.
However, all things aren’t equal, not even close. While I was successful writing 55k words last year, I had a stable job at the time and was able to focus on one challenge. This year has been different. I started a new writing gig on Monday, Oct. 31st and have been throwing myself into that challenge during the day, getting up to speed as quickly as possible. In addition, I’ve been fighting an obnoxious head cold this past week, pretty much going home after work, making dinner, and going to bed shortly afterward. Finally, I’m also Managing Editor of an online e-zine, Dragons, Knights, and Angels magazine, and I’ve had to acknowledge that I don’t have time to fulfill my obligations to that publication and still accomplish the sort of stretch goal that I’d set for myself. I am loathe to let my personal writing affect a stellar publication like that, and that has led me to rethink myself.
It is now Sunday, Nov. 13, almost two weeks into November. I am 4444 words into my first story, and am maybe 2/3s of the way to a publishable story. I like how it’s going, I like what’s coming together, and I’m ready to do what must be done. Instead of letting my competetive nature dictate the rest of my month, I’m taking a step back, looking at the spirit of the competition, and have decided that it is more important to me to write one good, publishable story, than attempt four and wind up with nothing. If you’d like to read the first scene for this story, which I am tentatively calling “The Speculum Convergence”, you can find it at http://phywriter.com/option_b/ , password “b”.
I like the basic concept of the challenge that I was attempting but maybe what I need is another year of writing short stories to position myself to take a more realistic swing at it. Thanks for your interest in this project, and stay tuned. I’ll post when “The Speculum Convergence” is finished.
And, yes, that “19th Century Russian Novel” write-in genre did throw me a little (I’m looking at you, Shelton). 
Having never read “War and Peace” or “Ulysses”, I was frankly at a loss with what to do with that. Instead of ducking the category or making a mess of a genre that I know nothing about, I condeded defeat. I think that’s the honorable thing. I guess I have a year to bone up on that, eh?