NaNoWriMo 2004

I'm already contemplating what I might work on for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I've worked on Eden for the past two NaNoWriMo's, and though I have a finished first draft I've been rather remiss in editing the manuscript into a serviceable first revision. I still care quite a bit about Eden and would like to see it through to completion, which means it's probably not a good idea to start up the distraction of a brand new novel in November.

So I've been thinking. I'm pretty good at writing one-page story fragments that I never seem to expand into fully-developed stories. Thus to blast my way past this inertia I've decided to write nothing but short stories for this year's NaNoWriMo. I checked the calendar, and I have twenty working days in November that I can count on as productive time. (I do most of writing on my sixty-minute train ride to and from work, with not much writing accomplished at home due to various responsibilities and distractions.)

My goal: Attaining the 50,000 words by writing twenty short stories of 2,500 words each. That might even be more of a challenge than writing a single 50,000 word novel in a month. On December 1st, if all goes according to plan, I should have a very healthy reservoir of short story material to refine into finished product. And it seems like short story collections are coming into favor lately, so that might improve my publication potential beyond that of my 19th Century canal-and-farm epic.