I have twenty minutes to spare so I thought I’d do a quick blog post on why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo and what is happening for me and my writing during the month of November. If you hang around the writing scene, you will no doubt have heard about NaNoWriMo and have seen a lot of authors posting their daily word counts. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and this is where writers try to complete 50,000 words in 30 days. Yes, that is a lot. It actually works out at 1,667 words every day.

Why I’m Not Doing NaNoWriMo

I’m not doing it because, to be honest, I don’t want to put myself under so much stress and I don’t want to feel like a failure when I can’t manage to do it. I’ve tried it a few times and the most I’ve managed is somewhere around the 27,000 mark.

Life gets in the way and as a wife and mother, I don’t have the time necessary to focus on this challenge. I work hard during the day and if I manage to get 500 words or more of my own writing done each morning, it’s a bonus. Once my children arrive home from school, its family time, dinner, and interacting with each other. I don’t want to spend my evenings in my office.

So, I’m not partaking in NaNoWriMo, but I am setting myself my own little challenge and that is to try and write 500 words every day Monday through Friday. Why not the weekends? Weekends are family time, but if I am up before everyone else, I do try to get some words down while the house is lovely and quiet.

The New Novel I’m Working On

I’m working on a new story. It’s romantic suspense at the moment, which I have written a brief outline for, but knowing how my characters like to take over, I’m not sure how it will end up. I’m up to Chapter 4 and so far it’s going well and I really like my main character. She’s a bit broken at the moment after finding her fiancé cheating on her with his secretary and she’s driven off without thinking. Frustrated she’s ignored weather warnings for a snowstorm too. As you can probably guess, she ends up stranded and being rescued by my other character, Jackson. I have to admit, I really, really, like him. He has a past. He’s broody. He’s super hot (think real men jeans and checked shirts), and he doesn’t want Amber (my main character) interrupting his life. He helps her because he can’t not and this will tie in to his past which will be revealed as the story is told.

My outline has some serious stuff happening to Amber with her fiancé finding her and kidnapping her, but something tells me, this might not come to pass. I’m going to wait and see.

I had initially started this story with a plan for a Christmas novella. I even had the cover you see to the right ready, but as soon as I started writing it, I knew it was going to be more. I’ve learned over this past couple of years to trust my instincts when it comes to writing and I feel this story is going to take on a life of its own. I’m also recognising that once again, I have two deeply emotional characters that are broken and who are going to help mend each other. How that happens, I don’t yet know, but I am excited to find out.

New Stories Being Published in 2020

I’m also finishing up with two other stories that will be out in anthologies next year. Stolen Identity is a kinda prince and the pauper retelling with two female characters and it is set in an asylum. This story is 15,000 words and will be featured in an Asylum anthology.

My other story is called Grisham House and this is a Bronte inspired story that will also appear in an anthology next year. This one was such fun to write and I got to explore my darker side and include a lot of gothic elements.

What’s Happening with Winterland

Winterland is still sitting on my computer, screaming at me to do something with it. This full length paranormal romance novel has been submitted a few agents, but unfortunately, this genre is a hard sell in the UK and Ireland, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it. The story has reapers in it which are starting to trend again on Amazon, so it could be a good title to publish myself or submit directly to a publisher. I really love this story and ideas for a book two have been circulating for a while. I even have the first two chapters written.

That’s where I’m at right now, but I will be looking at what I plan to do next year very soon and making decisions about where I want to take my writing career. The publishing industry changes so quickly, especially the self publishing industry, so it is important to keep up to date and know what is happening at all times.

I’m looking forward to Christmas and taking a couple of weeks off with lots of books to read.

I’ll keep you all updated on the progress of my new romantic suspense and if you subscribe to my newsletter, I am planning to include the first chapter next month.

Until next time,

Keep reading and writing,

Amanda