A friend of mine who had a small publishing empire before self-pub was a thing, memorably said in response to being questioned on whether she would participate in NaNoWriMo that year: “No. Every month is NaNoWriMo to me.” I always admired and was a bit intimidated by that remark. Would it ever be the case for me?

The answer is probably not. I’m a slower writer and that’s ok. But I kind of get where she was coming from. It doesn’t touch what NaNoWriMo is to me, which is a chance to gather with fellow writers, cheer each other on, and eat excessive amounts of candy and drink coffee.

Since before the pandemic began I’ve connected in with virtual groups of friends to write together online, and that has only intensified during 2020, the Plague Year. But it’s not the same.

This year’s NaNoWriMo will not be in person, but will be virtual. I feel as if I should grumble along with my friend “every month is like NaNoWriMo” now. I intensely miss getting together physically with other writers. But this is the right decision for NaNoWriMo to make. It removes the peer pressure that is part of the event and which would otherwise encourage people to meet too closely and spread the virus.

I’ll be participating, hoping to meet new virtual writer friends and discover new tricks. But at the same time I’ll be looking forward to 2021’s NaNoWriMo when I hope we can all gather in person again.

If you are also doing NaNoWriMo this year, please do connect to me. I’m SereneWriter on the NaNoWriMo board. The name is aspirational. I’m not all that serene.

Be well, friends!

Logo courtesy of National Novel Writing Month.