November's Writing Experiment & 1st Long Stream (Day 10)! (Patreon)

Helloooooo everyone! 🍂 Hope you're feeling well and have had a FANTASTIC start to your November!

Day 1 of NaNoWriMo (the real Day 1, and not my October 24th switcharoo bahaha) I spent on the beach, relaxing and reading!

Day 2 I spent in airports and planes, and Day 3 I spent recovering from my body getting used to Texas allergies again bahaha.

And if you've watched my (very) recent "Week 1" vlog, you'll know that I actually managed to fit in some writing Days 4 - 7 bahaha.

The biggest revelation has been editing while I write, or as Regina called it, "cleaning up as (I) go." The typical NaNo advice pushes back against this, but since I'm doing a "regular" NaNo otherwise, I guess the rebel in me had to jump out somehow. :)

Even if it isn't as much volume as I'd anticipated, I'm proud of the work I've done so far. The actual, on-page work too! And every time I've sat down at the keyboard (or with my pen and paper), I feel like I've just melted into the zone and become immersed in the little world I'm creating.

Which is perfect because this whole month, for me, is really about rekindling the ol' NaNoWriMo spirit. Just making it fun again. The past couple November's have felt more "serious" when really, I think, after all the panini business, I've just needed an outlet, a little reprieve.

(It's also worth mentioning here, before I pivot into the experiment, that the NaNoWriMo website is working for me for the first time in YEARS. I don't know how much that's affecting my enjoyment, but I can't discount it. Now I can update my progress and see my stats without immediately being kicked off every fifteen seconds??? Heck yes!)

Please do let me know how these first days of NaNoWriMo (or November in general, if you're not participating) have gone for you. Any revelations you've had or fun passages you want to share, I want to hear them!

OKAY, now to this experiment business. I've got two options for you:

1) ✨the stars✨guide my writing vlog

Okay so while on my writing retreat, some of the girls got me to download this app, Co-Star, and helped explain astrology to me:

And I found that several of the days had writing-adjacent Do's and Don'ts! (Like do: personal essays and don't: question marks bahaha.) So I thought it would be silly and fun to use this app AND explore astrology more by having it control my day. A true chaos vlog.

2) swapping my 📱screen time📱 with writing time 

I've seen a version of this done with reading time and booktube, and thought it would be fun to try over in the authortube sphere. Since most of our phones track our every movement, we can go look to see how much "screen time" we're using up.

Any that isn't being used for work (so for me, mostly lots of Reddit) will be swapped with writing! 👀

Let me know what you think & which you'd prefer. (Also, if you've done either of these, let me know about any successes or pitfalls you experienced!)

Our first of three (or more??) long writing streams will be TOMORROW, November 10th at 1:30pm CST. (For those outside the States, we just had our time change and fell back an hour so just FYI!)

I'm thinking we'll do these streams every 10 days of November (usually my "worst" days of NaNo bahaha, the dreaded Day 10 and Day 20) and I'll plan to write for at least a couple hour-long sprints and a couple, silly, shorter, chaotic sprints. :)

Hope to see y'all there! 

(Also my state, Texas, has once again disappointed me in our recent elections. I'm going to give myself today to wallow and just read some good books, but I'll be back at things tomorrow and I'll have y'all to help.💜)

Sending you all the good vibes and happy writing!!