I’m a little late to the party with Hamilton. Fortunately, the party’s still going on so I’ve got time to play catchup. I mean, it’s not even coming to Pittsburgh until 2019! Until then, all I can do is play the soundtrack nonstop. (See what I did there?)

I understand why everyone is so in love with this musical. But I feel a personal attachment to Alexander Hamilton as an American writer. Songs like Eye of The Hurricane and Nonstop just stir my heart.

American writers have a rich and heavy legacy to uphold. Fitzgerald, Nelly Bly, Upton Sinclair. We write in their shadows, trying in our own ways to cause ripples in our societies. While the first call for a writer, at least a fiction writer, is to tell a story, many of us crave something more. We want to make changes, and for many of us, our writing is the way we do that.

And there’s a good reason for this.

We built this country on words. We may have fought a war to gain our freedom, but that wasn’t all of it. We had to convince people that war was worth fighting. Our founding fathers did that with essays and speeches, provoking our men and women to action. Common Sense is still read today, and the Constitution was a work of art. None of our battles would have even happened without them. We wrote our way to freedom. And that’s powerful!

We change this country with words, once we got it started. We wrote essays and stories that gave people the truth of situations that they might have preferred to ignore. We wrote fiction stories that had more truth to them than people realized. We revolutionized the food industry, the mental health industry. We cleaned house sometimes, when we needed to, with our words.

We should remember our heritage, as American writers. We’ve changed minds, changed lives, changed policies! Words have power, don’t ever forget that.

My favorite line from Hamilton is this: “America, you unfinished symphony. You sing for me!” These words, especially weighty after realizing how important his legacy was to Hamilton, rest on my mind. We, American Writers, are his legacy. When you think you’re too tired to write, you remember that. When you’re afraid that you might get backlash for something you’ve written, remember that.

Don’t throw away your shot.

If you’re doing Nano, you should have 5,001 words written by the end of today.

I hope those little updates don’t bother you because I’m going to keep doing them for every post the rest of the month. You know, to help you keep track.

I have the utmost respect for Nanowrimo. It inspires new writers to get started, helps them push through that ever-difficult beginning, and is just fun. It’s all about everyone reaching their own personal finish line.

That being said, I haven’t participated in Nano for several years now. I’ve done Nano Edmo for two years straight, but haven’t done Nanowrimo in a very long time. Here’s why I don’t, and why I think you probably should.

Why I don’t do Nano anymore

The years that I did Nanowrimo were quite difficult for me because I write longhand. That is crazy hard when you’re doing Nano because you can’t scan a page and put it into the word counter. And I can’t work on a computer for a rough draft, I just can’t do it. For one thing, I can’t carry a computer with me everywhere, and I find myself incapable of writing on a tablet. For another, I feel that my words don’t flow as well on a keyboard as in a notebook. And finally, I find that the act of typing in messy pages of text is the best and most in-depth way to do a second draft.

Nevertheless, I really tried to make it work for three years. I stopped trying when I looked at 50,000 words of Starting Chains rough draft, realized it was all shit, and threw it away to start from scratch. That was the last time I participated in Nanowrimo.

I understand that you don’t really have to use the official word counter. I get that I could just count my words every day and not officiate it. I think I’d rather cut my wrists than count every word I write, but I could do it. So the fact that I write longhand shouldn’t really stop me. Here’s the real reason why I don’t do Nano anymore. It doesn’t always mesh with my writing schedule.

Take this year, for instance. I’m working on a rough draft right now, of Station Central. (Station 86, book 4. Don’t forget, Book 3 starts on November 29^th.) But I’ll actually be done with it pretty soon since I started in October.

Could I have waited for November first to start Station Central? Sure. But I’d have wasted all that time, and I didn’t really want to do that. I had an outline, and I was ready to go. Now, I’m almost ready to start on the second draft of Sandwashed. (The first of the new duality, set after the Woven Trilogy. The second of the Woven Trilogy, Starting Chains, is coming soon.) I don’t want to delay that or start it early so I can do Nanoedmo in full this month. I need to work on the project I’m ready to work on when I need to work on it. I can’t stop or start a project just because it’s November.

Why you should

Let’s be clear, I’m kind of weird. Most writers have no problem writing rough on a computer. (But if you do, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.) Most writers don’t feel itchy when they’re not working on a project. Some writers finish a book and then don’t start on another one right away if you can believe that. So, for lots of writers, Nanowrimo works just fine.

For instance, if you haven’t started your novel, but you want to, then Nanowrimo is right for you. It’s the magic of a deadline, and you’d be amazed how motivational that is. You need to get your outline done and get started! No more hem-hawing, no more maybe someday. Here is the day you’re starting, right now! And by that I mean, if you haven’t’ started on your novel on November first, start today. We are only three days in, you can catch up. Just start writing!

If you don’t know if you can really finish your novel, you should also do Nanowrimo. Maybe you’ve started rough drafting, and you have some notes. You have an idea of the character’s, maybe a vague idea of the ending. But you’re not really working on it like you should. You might take it out and play with it sometimes when you need to feel creative. Well, now’s the time to knock out 50,000 words of your little project. I imagine that you’ll find you want to keep going after that.

If you’re not really sure that you’re even a writer anyway, but you really want to give it a try, then I can’t suggest enough that you do Nanowrimo, right now! Trust me, if there are two things that will inspire you to write, it’s a deadline and other writers cheering you on! You will be inspired, you will be motivated! You will be a writer!

Here’s some good news

Just in case you’re still on the fence about this whole Nanowrimo thing, let me give you a piece of inspiration. You know that book I talk about all the time? Broken Patterns?

It started out as a Nanowrimo novel.

So if anyone tells you that its’ a waste of time, that Nanowrimo books don’t get published, you can tell them that they are dead wrong.

It’s November, and we’re down to the wire for 2017. I’m feeling pretty good about the year, if I can be honest. I’ve done almost everything I wanted to do this year, and I’ve got the last few things scheduled. And November is going to be a lot of fun, if also a lot of work.

Controlling Your Life, the email course, will be starting on November 13^th. Is November the best time to start actionable items that will give you a better handle on your day to day so that you have time to write? Of course it is! Because these are tips and habits that you can start right away to make your life run more smoothly. Click here if you haven’t signed up yet.

This is exciting for me, because I haven’t done an email course since the 30 Days, 30 Ideas event. I’ve taken way too long to come up with another one. (By the way, if you didn’t get to participate in 30 Days, 30 Ideas, don’t fear. I combined the whole challenge into a free ebook, that you can get by clicking here right now.)

Virus is starting on November 29^th. This is the third installment of Station 86, and it’s where some serious questions are going to be answered. Why has Earth gone silent? What’s happening, now that April’s secret is out?

I’m excited to start getting Virus out. It’s the longest Station 86 book to date.

Obviously, Thanksgiving and Christmas are both happening in the next 60 days. And so is my husband’s birthday. I don’t think I need to explain how much of my time this is taking up.

For those of you doing Nano in November, my online scifan group will be doing all sorts of fun things. While I’m not competing this year, I am going to be spending some time cheerleading.

Oh, and one more thing, nothing major. Just that Starting Chains, Book Two of Woven, has been accepted by Solstice Publishing! I can’t begin to say how excited and humbled I am by this. I’ll be working with my editor to get everything just right over the next few months. And I’ll be sure to tell you as soon as I know when the launch date is.

November and December are going to be amazing, and I am so deeply thankful for everything that’s happened so far.

Speaking of gratitude, I’ve been doing something all year that I’d like to share with you today.

See, 2016 wasn’t a great year for almost anyone. In fact, it was a garbage fire kind of year. While my book, Broken Patterns, did get published, that was about the only good thing that happened.

I was not feeling the new year excitement when we started 2017. I wanted to feel okay, but I didn’t think there was enough good happening to make that happen.

I’ve known for a while that a lot of people practice daily gratitude. I’d tried to do this in the past, writing down at least one thing I was grateful for in my bullet journal. The problem was, I forgot. It was on a page that I didn’t necessarily flip to every day. So, I’d miss a day or two, get discouraged and stop trying.

Starting on January first, I decided that if there was one habit I was going to get down in 2017, it was a habit of daily gratitude for what I have. Because, especially in these times of fighting and unrest, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. My children are strong and healthy. I have a loving husband and a roof over my head. The damn roof might leak, but it’s there. We have food in our house, even if it’s pasta more days than I’d like. (Pasta and chicken are cheap. So, they’re staples of our diet in my house.) I have a good job. I have a couple books published, and most months I even sell a few copies.

I started writing down two things I was grateful for the day before, in the side column of my Erin Condron Planner. They could be little things, or huge things, it didn’t matter. Maybe a bat got in the house and I got to pet it before we let it out. Maybe dinner was especially nice, or my mother in law sprung for takeout. Maybe I could get overtime, or found an extra dollar I didn’t know I had.

Whatever my day was like, I found that I could think of at least two bright spots in the darkness. Even on the bad days. Days I was fighting with my kids, hadn’t slept well, was down because of the news. Even as I was praying for Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and Los Vegas. Even as I was increasingly frightened by what I heard on the news. I searched for those bright spots.

I had the extra money to donate. (And if you want to donate, click here.)

My best friend messaged me, just to say hi.

I found some chocolate dipped cookies that were cheap at Aldi

We went downtown today, and saw the community garden.

I finished a big project.

The kids didn’t fight today.

Rick and Morty is back.

I made pork chops in the crock pot and they were good.

I managed to keep this up every day this year. And by remembering the good from the day before, I made every day of 2017 a little bit brighter.

What are you thankful for this year? What good has come your way, big or small?

If you’re doing Nano, you should have 1,667 words written by now