So, the last few years I have considered myself unable to do Nanowrimo. Good reasons: Last year I actually was writing a book in November, and got 70K words done in about 2 months. Non-fiction doesn’t count, though, and I took the contract with a 2 month deadling. Novels don’t fit in there. Also, there are two birthdays, not to mention Thanksgiving weekend. And a toddler the couple of years before that. It is one of the fullest months of the year for me.

Also, I think the idea of putting so much energy into something that I don’t have worked up enough and could prove fruitless (at least on the surface. I know the exercise is good) just makes me shy away from it.

Then I got an idea. Why a novel? It must be fiction, but it doesn’t have to have one single plot. So, why not short stories? One a day? No, since there are at least four days I won’t be doing it. But twenty in a month? Yeah. I think I can do that. I may not finish every story, but instead will at the very least start one and get 2500 words into it or more if I write other stories with lower word count.

Twenty stories, 50K words. I am sure that at least after November, there will be a higher word count between them all. I’ve never written a story less than 4K before.

My first task is to get 20-30 story ideas on paper. At the end of this all, I should have a handful of stories suitable for cleaning up.