Haha, I’m only 10 days late, right?

No, but seriously, November was as enriching a month as I’ve had in, well, probably a year (since last year’s NaNo).   I wrote, I laughed, I met some amazing writers in my area, and I had a ton of fun.

But I didn’t hit 50K this year.

My valiant effort netted me 30K (And bonus!  Several novel ideas found space to germinate!), but I think I vastly underestimated the difficulty of starting and stopping a hundred times by doing Flash Fiction.  Of the seven categories I wanted to attempt, I only hit 3.5 of them.  Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Fantasy all got 14-15 prompts done, and Superhero got about 4.  I never touched Arthurian, Retro Futurism, or Steampunk.

So I’m going to chalk the writing part up to good experience.  Crafting good Flash Fiction is hard, and doing that many was probably not a realistic goal for one month.  If I committed to flash fiction again during November, it would be with an understanding that I probably wouldn’t shoot for 50K.  I missed the feeling of being able to sink into the words and let them flow over you.  By the time I could hit a writing sweet spot and get into my groove…the prompt was over!

Also, it didn’t help that I got a light bout of food poisoning mid-month!  It kind of was the prompt for me to allow myself to let my issues with my format take precedence.  And since I didn’t feel good, I went on a Glee-watching binge on Netflix (super fun show, btw!)

But November certainly wasn’t a total loss!  As Municipal Liaison for my region, I had an absolutely awesome time organizing Write-Ins.  In total, I put together nine events including the Kick-Off and TGIO (Thank Goodness It’s Over!) events.

One of the best things to spin out of last month, however, was that several of my writers have taken it upon themselves to found a twice-monthly critique group called Mark My Words!  One of my biggest lamentations after each November (aside from the fact that I’m suuuper drained all December!), is that I have all this built up creative energy, but nowhere for it to live once NaNo is done.  I’m hopeful that this group of talented writers (some of them are even published!) can help me hone my craft and get things ready for publication.

I’m still hopeful I can craft five to seven good superhero Flash fictions to put up on Amazon later this month or early January!  Wish me luck!

Cheers,

Chris