After several weeks of high summer temperatures, the weather turned a bit cooler this past week. I'm very appreciative of the drop in temperatures as I prefer autumn and winter over summer. But the change has also put me in a mood to work on other projects, some old and others new. During the past few months, my focus has been on the work required to launch the first novel in my fantasy series which is geared towards a young adult/new adult audience. I have always been a fan of fantasy stories, particularly high fantasy adventures which introduce readers to new worlds and cultures and lore. But I have also been equally a fan of supernatural and horror-based stories and folklore, and I have several projects which lean more towards these darker themes which I want to spend time on this fall.
novels
Are You Chasing Numbers or Chasing Progress?
When it comes to setting and tracking writing goals, many of the websites and apps I've come across allow writers to measure their progress only by way of word counts, and while numerical word goals may be useful to many writers, I find it very narrowminded to limit users of these apps and websites to measuring progress via only word count. There are many goals writers may want to set and many types of writing where word counts will not provide an efficient way of tracking progress.
The Dream of Storytelling
Much of this weekend threatened rain, keeping me inside where I spent most of my time editing my novel manuscript. I'm hoping to pitch or query it this winter, but putting the final polish on it is difficult for me, perfectionist that I am. I realize some other writers have the same problem, but such knowledge is not enough to silence my inner critic.
Making NaNoWriMo Work for You
So with the start of November on Thursday, we will once again see the start of NaNoWriMo. I have yet to decide if I'm participating formally or not, but I do see a number of writers on social media gearing up for their projects. I love the encouragement and community that NaNoWriMo and its additional camps creates for writers both new and old, but the writing process itself, pushing to hit daily word count goals, doesn't work well for me.
HLHumbert 