For this year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I’m concentrating on the two Bs: my book and my blog. I feel ready and prepared (mostly!) to tackle the challenge of writing 50k words in a month this year, and most of all, I’m excited to do so.

I’m working on a new novel this year—hurray! The focus of my previous five NaNoWriMo’s have been the same story, and that story is now, finally, in revision mode. Doesn’t make for the best of first-draft-purge NaNo projects. I’m revisiting a story from my past, the one I had been lightly working on before the main WIP (work-in-progress) shoved its way into my heart and mind. It’s delightful to return to it, and with the elements that are coming out now, I wouldn’t have been able to really write this story 10 years ago. It deals heavily with emotions from the death of my father, and 10 years ago I was just too close to the source to do it justice—or even do it at all. The book would’ve turned out much differently than it will today. I’m grateful for that time and perspective.

For my blog … ugh. I just need to light a fire in my pants. I’ve tried to do the NaNo-blog thing in the past, just to catch up with my posts and get myself back on track, but it never worked. Probably because I did them during CAMP NaNo, which is a lighter version of the flagship November event. For some reason, those always feel “less real” to me: you put in your own target word count, so instead of writing 50k to “win,” you can write 25k, 10k, or even just 1k. I don’t do well with establishing deadlines of my own because they feel contrived, so I’ve never officially “won” Camp NaNoWriMo. Also, there is less community than there is during the main event, and that’s something I rely heavily on to push me through. I love the camaraderie. I thrive on the little bit of competition. There’s just more to the November NaNo that fires me up, so this year, I’m putting “blog posts” into the circulation of projects on as a main priority. It’s time to get serious with this author thing! And being an author as opposed to a writer, in my opinion, means putting yourself and your work out there, not just toiling at home on a book, isolated from the world for years on end.

Here are the challenges I wish to set for myself each day during November, and the reality minimums that I hope to reach on days that don’t go quite as planned:

Challenge: Write one blog post a day + find photo to accompany it

Reality: Some posts will need research, and all need photos in order to actually post them, so do at minimum 1 hour of blog writing/working per day, every day. Preferably more. Sometimes, photos require some digital manipulation on my part, at at minimum do 1/2 hour of working on photos.

Challenge: Write one scene per day in novel

Reality: This is a hard one, because my scenes can get long and unwieldy, and that’s when I know what I’m writing. I don’t always. Sometimes, I need to take some time free-writing to figure out how a scene should go. But, any words written during November on your NaNo projects counts towards your word goal, in my book. So the minimum I want to do is write 500 words per day relating to my novel.

So, my targets are:

Lackluster day: 1 hour spent working on some aspect of blog + 1/2 hour for photos; 500 words of novel

Good day: 1 blog post; 1+ photos for blog; 1 scene of novel (minimum 1,500 words)

Amazing day: The sky’s the limit! While I will never, ever top my 14k word day from the final day of NaNo 2016, I can reach great word heights when I’m truly in the zone. I live for those moments, even when they don’t happen all that often. Perhaps they are so special BECAUSE they don’t happen often.

So, how will I do with all of these targets? Follow along through November to find out!

Let’s go, NaNo, let’s go!