I spent most of 2021 listening to Fantasy audiobooks. I've gone through Jessica Day George (everything on Audible), Patricia C. Wrede (everything on Audible), Orson Scott Card (The Alvin Maker series, The Mither Mages series, Enchantment, Wyrms), Brandon Sanderson (The Alcatraz series), Charlie N. Holmberg (The Paper Magician series, Spellbreaker & Spellmaker), and Melanie Cellier (Everything on Audible, especially The Spoken Mage and The Hidden Mage series), J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter). These books have kept me sane the past two years, plus others, but these are the ones I go back to over and over again. I’ve listened to Patricia C. Wrede’s Frontier Fantasy trilogy five times in two years.

So, it's no surprise that for NaNoWriMo I wrote a fantasy. Granted, the four previous years I wrote fantasy, too, but this one was a princess tale. My first. I blame Melanie Cellier.

I'm a pantser, mostly. I like to know where I'm going, and where I want the story to end. I need a few key points in my head, too. Then I head in the direction I set up and see what happens. In the past, if I got stuck on a chapter, I'd go for a walk, take a hot shower, etc. to give my brain a chance to figure out where I was going next.

This time, I didn't. I tried to figure out what to do the way I used to, plotting the next chapter before I wrote it. But that only worked for the first two chapters. Then I decided to just start typing and see what happened. And it was amazing. I'd start typing and go with whatever came to mind. Sometimes, I'd wonder why an idea would come to me, but I'd go with it. Then, a chapter or three later, I'd have an idea that tied into what I'd written. And it was not bad at all. For a first draft, it flows fairy well. I have a foundation to go build on, flesh out some secondary characters, do some foreshadowing, and ramp up the trouble.

Every day the writing was a joy because I just let my subconscious come up with ideas. It took me in directions I didn’t expect. I did write the first chapter four times, and the ending twice, but it's a good start.

For NaNo 2020 I reached 50,000 words, but only just. I think I was 300 words over. At the end, I was just getting to the heart of the story. It was hard. Or maybe it was just 2020. The three previous years were better. But this NaNo was the most fun.

It was especially nice as I've only been able to focus on poetry this year. That's not a bad thing. I've written a lot of poems, and sold five. I've submitted more than any previous year, and with each batch of poems, at least one would get a personal comment from the editor. I count that as a win because it was good enough to get their attention. Now I just need to keep at it and write more poetry. And edit four short stories. And rewrite three novels. (I'm really not sure about the half-novel. I will have to look at it again at some point and decide where I want to go with it, but not right now.)

I love NaNo because it forces me back into longer fiction. Into novels. It gets my brain thinking past poetry. There’s nothing wrong with writing poetry. I love it, and I’m doing pretty well with it so far, but I want to do more, and NaNo makes me think. It makes me trust my subconscious, or my Muse, or whatever you want to call it. I need to give it a name. Maybe Fluffy.

As long as I keep learning and practicing, my writing is getting better, and that is what I’m aiming for.