It's on! NaBalWriMo

Many of you are on board with a NaNoWriMo alternative in which we DON'T push ourselves to the brink of insanity drafting 50K words in a month (kudos to those who do--there's a great site with support and accountability all ready for you).

Rather than call it something negative, like NaNo-No, which I did jokingly in a previous post, I'd love this to be a positive, fun, relaxed, 30-day creativity-enriching experience, so I'm dubbing it:

NaBalWriMo
National Balanced Writers Month
More creativity, less guilt!

If you're up for it, please take a moment to think about places in your life that feel out of balance, and share your list of a few simple things you'd like to try to regain sanity and creative joy this month. We can cheer each other on! I'll go first.

My November goals:

-To be more emotionally present, especially to family
-To have more energy
-To recharge spiritually and emotionally
-To explore deeply some themes that I care about
-To rediscover the joy of creating
-To offer encouragement to other writers
-To maintain momentum with querying

And my "action items"
(to steal from boring corporate training I've sat through):

-Write one page a day of memories or notes or wordplay
-Watch lots of movies
-Read widely and with relish
-Have coffee with a friend
-Do a messy craft with hobbit girl weekly
-Walk the dog 4x week on the hiking trails nearby
-Blog some journal explorations and fun stuff
-Cheer on my NaNoWriMo, NaNoWraMo and NaNoRevMo pals
-Query 10 more agents

Anyone up for designing a badge? Let me know that you did and I'll send folks over to copy it and display with pride.

What do you think of the concept? Let me know if you're planning to join in NaBalWriMo!

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NaNo-No: Because this ain't the month to disappear

The interwebs are all abuzz with the approach of November, which for many will mean NaNoWriMo: an intense 30 days of drafting something completely new, very fast, with built-in support and accountability. Intense bursts can be a wonderful thing for getting a draft underway, and if you're the sort that can schedule that kind of intense creativity, kudos to you.

There are a few alternate November support/accountability groups forming for those not starting a draft from scratch.

Sara McClung is gathering writers needing an intense burst to wrap up a manuscript in progress. It's called NaNoWraMo. Go check out her site to learn more.

I've heard buzz from many quarters about spending the month revising, or NaNoRevMo. If anyone knows who's spearheading support/accountability for this, let me know in the comments.

For me, it's going to be NaNo-No. This is simply not the time to disappear from my family. Fall never is. My husband has an insane teaching load--165 students this semester, with a grading load that would make you weep. My daughter's teacher called this AM to discuss all the emotional problems hobbit girl is having at school. I can't help but think a lot more Mommy time would do her some good.

It's all about balance. I plan to go on querying my finished book and continue researching and drafting my second. I'll be blogging as I'm able and baking more cookies, building more forts, taking more hikes and playing more board games.

Anyone else saying "no" to NaNo this year? Want to be my buddy? What shall we call ourselves?

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