A. B. KEUSER

NaNoWriMo is an awesome challenge and great way to push yourself to get something started, or get something finished… or just get focused. It’s an amazing community and it’s a great way to kick yourself in the pants.
As someone who’s done NaNo several times, I am a big proponent of participation. I needed it for focus because… whoa, my brain gets especially flustered around this time of year.

But this time, I had to make the hard choice to not participate. As a self-competitive person, and a completionist, stepping back and removing myself from that particular trackable goal was tough. But my first priority goal this month is an edit and editing does not for a NaNo word count make.


I probably will still hit the 50k mark (Even my worst month since I started actively tracking my word counts in 2013 was over 50k… barely). But those words will be pulled from all over the place within my to-do list and so, I can’t in good conscience count them toward a NaNo “novel.”

That’s why I’m over her…

Words Written: 113,815-words in 26 days
(AVG 4,378-words/day)
5 projects + Admin (6%)


This month feels like it was three years long. Maybe that’s because I got in as many words as I did? Maybe it’s because I spent it watching horror movies (some of which take a few days off my life every time I watch them)? Maybe it’s because the year is winding down and the weather’s finally getting cold and my bones are aching? Maybe it’s because I need my dosage upped and the time nonsense associated with my TLE has started to mess with me. Who knows.



The word count is as high as it is because I threw 70,000 of those words into a fast draft (it had OH SO MANY NOTES) in 9 days that is completely horrendous. I’ll be setting it aside while I work on other things next month so that I can come back to it in December and see how many of those words I’m actually going to keep, and then get a real draft around the 90k mark. (note: I’m not going to be able to do that draft in 9 days, history has proven thi…