As I’ve stated a few times on twitter, I’m planning on doing National Novel Writing Month, in order to produce a slim rough draft of a brand new novel. I’ll be honest, I’m still hammering out the details and various plot points as I’m outlining, but it does feel like this is already on fire a bit…Let me explain:

Okay, so to put #NaNoWriMo2019 in perspective, I am shooting to do a full draft of a brand new novel 50k-60k in one month.

While also:
– working fulltime
– freelancing 12+ hours a week
– parenting my two toddlers
– other misc. Obligations

Anybody else in this boat? #amwriting

— Alexander Pyles (@PylesofBooks) October 17, 2019

There’s a lot going on in November! Especially since, I decided to continue my current freelance gig on top of my full-time work. The only thing is that my client has doubled the workload (but also doubled my hours), which I agreed to because $$$, but all of this is going to add up to a stressful month. I’m planning on really sticking to my guns all around, because getting a manuscript out for me during November is key, because spring is when my wife’s work really picks up and she is gone a lot. The summer is often full of other activities, so really the fall during this phase of our lives may just be the best bet.

Why am I doing this to myself? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve been aching to get a novel out for some time, so that I have something sitting around to query, while I keep doing short fiction as I have been. I’m not even sure what genre is going to be honestly, which isn’t super important to me, but it could go any which way.

At the moment, this little project is feeling like a sci fi-weird-lit-horrorish project, but again I won’t know until it’s done. I wish I could talk about it more, but I kinda want to save that juice for Nano itself.

I will be posting weekly word counts on Tuesdays to keep myself accountable and to make sure I stay on track. I’ll have some pre-written book reviews going up on Thursdays and Saturdays as normal, so there won’t be that much change.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to listen to me taking this last deep breath before the plunge on Friday.