All right, I’m not a complete NaNo newbie anymore! Ok, I’m still pretty new to National Writing Month, but I did it last year and survived, so I don’t feel like a total boot. And this fact makes itself known when I think of how much writing prep I did last year compared to this year.

I don’t mean research or plotting or outlining. I did way more of that this year than last year. But last year I was so stressed about my word count that I had tunnel vision. I bought myself a new mole skin and dandy pen. I picked out word count rewards. I scouted my out-of-the-house writing spot. I scoured the NaNoWriMo website, the Facebook page, the Pinterest page, the Twitter page, the Goodreads forums. I spent most of the latter half of October setting myself up to hit my word count.

This year? Not so much. I mean, ok, some of the reason is that the NaNoWriMo website hasn’t changed much and the forums are in the same place, so I don’t need to do all that again. But another part of it is that I’m confident I can hit a 50k mark in a way I wasn’t last year, so I can concentrate on WHAT I’ll be writing instead of HOW MUCH I’ll be writing. And I’m excited about this in a way I didn’t allow myself to be last year.

So, what am I writing this year? I’m branching way outside my comfort zone. I’m writing a contemporary romance of sorts, between a wounded Afghanistan war veteran and a FTM transgendered Trauma Sensitive yoga instructor.

This is outside my comfort zone for a couple reasons, One, I tend to gravitate toward writing fantasy, so a contemporary setting is new for me. Plus, I’ve never written a romance. And lastly, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, I’m deathly afraid of getting my transgendered representation wrong. But I have what I think is a pretty strong outline, so I am soldiering on. (If anyone is able and willing to beta this aspect of the book, on completion, I would love you forever.)

*Deep breath* In three days I’ll start my second NaNo round. I feel as ready as I can be. I’m going to try and hit more of the real-life, in person write-ins than I did last year. But most are at 6pm, which is a hard time for me to arrange. (That’s an excuse, but it’s also true.) But if anyone is in the Saint Louis area and interested in connecting. I’m Saussy on the buddy list. Feel free to drop me a line. We can commiserate together, or encourage on another, or whatever.

It probably goes without saying, but for those seeking review…not in November.