Parisian Phoenix Publishing

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the first day of November.

It’s National Novel Writing Month. In the mid-aughts, a phenomenon developed that lead to an organization that might now be classified as a writing movement.

Every November, let’s all try to write a novel. First draft. Messy. Painful. But keep going. 1700 words a day to reach 50,000 words in a month.

NaNoWriMo.

So, I went over to the NaNoWriMo website. My username, according to my internet browser’s records is AngelatParisianPhoenixBooks. I had to reset the password.

In my head, I’m “blaming” one of my favorite authors, Rachael Herron, for this because her recent newsletter encouraged me to join her in NaNoWriMo. So now, I’m signed up for NaNo, and I’m on Rachael’s Slack Channel (which I have been meaning to do forever), and I’ve already wished someone named Shana luck on her move across the country with ten cats.

This means, starting tomorrow, I will have an obligation at least to myself to try and start every morning with my own writing. The plan is to write Absolution, the fifth novel in the Fashion and Fiends series and stop making excuses why I don’t do more of my own writing.

Perhaps, as I organize my day today, I will consider one of the suggestions from the NaNo website. Maybe I shall open my Spotify and create a mood-setting playlist for this novel.

In this novel, we focus on reuniting lovable but perpetually stumbling into disaster fashion designer Étienne d’Amille with his family. He had disappeared at the end of book three, Recovery, in what was a misguided attempt to remedy the chaos in his universe.

In book four, 2024’s anticipated Road Trip, chronicles Jules Zweigenbaum’s journey half way across the United States to find and retrieve Étienne, only to discover that the villain of the story has threatened more than just the d’Amilles.

Perhaps with Rachael’s writing group and the NaNo tracker and the emotional push I’m currently feeling thanks to my shifting priorities– having lost my full-time job at Stitch Fix and embarked upon freelance editorial services and other creative guidance as my current professional avenue– perhaps I will get this done.

If nothing else, NaNo can serve as the impetus to make you examine your writing goals and your commitment. Nothing makes you organize your life like a deadline.