Today is the first day of 1130, which is my version of NANOWRIMO, affectionately known as PENOWRIMOHA (Personal Novel Writer’s Month And A Half) which lends itself to penis jokes, which is why I’m calling it 1130.

To recap, I have set the last day of November as a goal to finish a good portion of my untitled novel. A really, really rough, first incomplete draft. This differs from NANOWRIMO in two ways besides the time frame; I am working with a previously started story and I’m not looking at word count and not attempting to finish.

There’s one more big difference: Unlike my past attempts at NANOWRIMO, I will not count it as a failure if the novel is not complete by 11/30. The main goal here is really to work toward completing it, and to work on it every single day from now until that deadline. If I put something into every day - whether that be ten paragraphs or ten chapters or sketching out a new character - I will have disciplined myself to write every day, to work on it and keep it in my mind all the time and to get rid of the procrastination that has plagued this story since 198something. I have carried these characters with me for almost half my life and it’s time to set them free.

Ideally, I’d love to have a first draft finished by 11/30. But where the previous NANOWRIMOS only served to make me feel defeated, I think 1130 will push me toward getting this one finished.

I’m going to make a separate tumblr that will serve as a diary of sorts to keep track of what I’ve accomplished each day or just brainstorm out loud to myself (or to you). This is also a way of holding myself publicly accountable for writing each day.

So, I set sail today on a journey that I started over 20 years ago. I hope this ends well.