Made it to 50,000 words on Nov. 30! Didn’t totally finish the book — about 90% thru. But it feels super great to have accomplished the NaNoWriMo/ 50k word challenge two years in a row!

Happy NaNoWriMo! Hit my 1667 goal today with a little over. I’ll spend the rest of my day prepping my outline some more so I know where to go in the future. Definitely woke up this morning feeling that anxious excitement to get this challenge done :) 📖📚

Who else is doing a 50k word challenge in November? I’m doing the 60-day challenge through Dabble and the 90 day challenge through Autocrit. Dabble is my main priority, though. I’ve got more of a connection to the writing community there. Now to use this month to prep my outline !!

Also gearing up to write a sequel to my NaNo debut for this November, which means it’s time to research! I’m even planning a trip to the site where it takes place to get all the details I need in person. It’d be great to finish editing my debut before I start the second, but time will tell :)

Tragically didn’t get accepted to the writing residency, but the application really walked me through the querying process, so I feel ready to go when I’ve finished editing. I’ve been trudging through the out-loud readthru, but I took a break for a month or so! Time to dive back in.

I’ve also recently joined the autocrit #Novel90 challenge to try to work on my first adult novel. Since I’m still in the deep depths of editing my middle-grade #NaNo draft, I won’t dive headfirst into Novel90, but I’ll commit much more come fall (unless I get that writing residency!!)

Been working *all month* on my emerging writer residency application. It would be more than a dream come true to get accepted !! But even if I don’t get accepted, the 5-page proposal has helped me shape the framework for the query letters i’ll send out in the future, so I guess that’s good practice!

*finally* finished my first full stage of surface-level editing! I went through my manuscript and adjusted it based on my notes from my first read-through. Hopefully now when I read through my second draft it will be a bit more polished. Onto the second read-through!

Weird to hear about the NaNoWriMo disbandment. I completed the 50k word challenge in Nov that led me to complete the first draft of my WIP novel, and now I won’t be able to use Nano for this Nov. I’ll find other sites, but it’s still strange and kind of sad

How do people deal with the feelings of imposter syndrome when it comes to writing?? As I read other middle-grade and YA books, I feel like mine can’t stack up… I really enjoyed my reads-through, though, and I have a lot of ideas of what to add, but still!
:( it’s tough being new to things

Finished reading through my first draft. Vibes-only read. First two chapters were slow, but then I was totally hooked!! I procrastinated bc I was terrified it would totally suck, but I was surprisingly delighted most of the time. I’m actually looking forward to editing this thing into top shape

Okay people! The new year has started, it’s been over a month since I finished my first draft. I think my eyes are fresh, and it’s finally time to do my first vibes-only read through. I’m so nervous! But slowly and surely, the editing process has begun! 😬

Spent some time today working on my style guide. Apparently having a style guide helps editors understand parts of the story that might stand out as abnormal, like ways of speaking or odd descriptors. Since I wrote a kids book (middle grade), the breakdown isn’t too detailed :) not too stylized.

Hello!! I’ve started this account to gather a writing community. I just wrote the first draft of my first book, and as a hopefully debut author, I’d love some people on here who can help guide me / read my drafts / swap feedback / etc. I’ll also maybe use it as some kind of editing blog. We’ll see!