November always looked like that chill, unsuspecting month between ordinary life and the end-of-the-year festivities. Or the end-of-the-year rushing through the stores and buying overpriced presents for demanding family members. Anyway, November never equaled busy for me. If anything, I dreaded it for standing between me and my vacation somewhere where the sun was doing something other than occasionally popping up for two minutes, never giving any warmth, and then disappearing only to be seen again around late March.

On the last day of October, I whined about being stuck with the same first MS after an entire year. I’ll be honest: one book per year isn’t the pace I can allow myself. I need to produce at least two books per year. Not because of some financial (lol, what?) goal, or vanity, but because working on one single project has proven maddening for me.

And this is how on November 1st I randomly decided to participate in NaNoWriMo. While editing the final chapters of my MS. And rewriting an entire chapter I’m pouring my whole heart into.

It’s a lot—and it’s all served on a tiny plate. But I can do it. I must do it. I am many things, and one of them is ‘disciplined.’ I want to believe that if I nail NaNoWriMo, that if I manage to produce a first draft in a month’s time, I will become the industrious, productive writer I want to be.