FicFrenzy starts in TWO DAYS. I cannot believe it’s been a full year since I launched this writing challenge. I am so excited to settle in with my FicFriends again and get some good writing in. But this year’s FicFrenzy and in general fall writing for me may look a tad different.

Before I launched the Fiction Frenzy Writing Challenge last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo every single year for 12 years straight. I got a smidge…obsessed. BUT. The joy of NaNoWriMo and then FicFrenzy is that it pushed me to get a full book drafted in one go. I would often take things slower or work on editing projects during the other times of the year. But for that single month, I was always guaranteed a chance to get a first draft of something fully written. It was like a bubble of time to immerse fully in a single story and pound it out in one go where I could then more steadily work on other projects throughout the rest of the year.

I loved that. I still love that. But after 13 years straight of it and life right now taking some transitions (all quite good!), I’ve realized this year that I need to make some changes.

For this year’s challenge, I have two projects I’d like to focus on. But I’d also like to take things slower. Yeah, I know, the math doesn’t add up great.

I’m a writer, not a mathematician, okay??

Truth be told, I don’t want to basically set aside all of life to only write obsessively for an entire month. I want to see progress on writing, absolutely, but still make time for just…life, too.

I’ve loved my wild month-long fall writing ventures. I’ve gotten so many drafts and memories and growth as a writer out of it all. But this year I think I want to take things more casually and be okay if I don’t write an entire draft during the course of a month. I’ve more and more found the benefits of consistent work as opposed to rushed work. Oftentimes I get the exact same results if I show up consistently and steadily instead of wildly trying to do All The Things at once. And goodness, is there a freedom in it too. In seeing progress being made bit by bit without completely exhausting myself.

That’s my hope for this year’s fall of writing. Instead of vanishing from the earth and pounding out a 100k+ word draft in a month. I want to show up consistently, make time nearly every day to get words down, but not spend every waking hour on it. (It’d be nice to say hi to my family every now and again, you know?)

So what are my FicFrenzy plans?

Well.

That’s the other thing that’s going to change this year. Every year, during NaNo and then FicFrenzy, I kept a weekly log here on the blog of how things were going. I loved doing that. It brought me such joy inviting you each into my wild month of writing and journaling about my crazy adventure.

But this year I’m not setting a specific wordcount or have a goal of getting a draft done of one specific book. I may not even be keeping up with wordcounts much! (I know. Who am I?) Things are going to be far looser and quieter on my end.

Remember how I said I have two projects I’d like to work on? As of right now, I’m keeping them very close to my chest, so it’s kind of hard to blog about things when, ya know, my projects are hush-hush.

I will reveal one thing though. One of the projects, and probably my main one, is actually a collab story. Thus the whole not keeping up with wordcount thing, because it’s rather hard to track progress when you’re not the only one adding words to things.

But YOU GUYS. I am very, very excited about this thing. It’s a passion project and something entirely new for me and I don’t want to talk about it too much right now while it’s still in the development stage, but it is fun. And I am so looking forward to continuing progress on it during FicFrenzy.

The other project is a standalone. But, again, it’s a little outside of my usual genre but something I’d really like to try my hand at. I’m not sure how much progress I’ll get on it (if any) but I would like to try to get a fair amount of words in between working on the other project. But since I’m not sure about this one or how much time I’ll have to work on it, I’m keeping it quiet for now.

What all of this also means is that, for the first time, I’m not participating in my own Know the Novel tag. Which is quite sad, but it’ll be a tad difficult to answer all those questions about secret projects. XD Though I do hope to still do little progress updates over on Instagram and a summary of how the event went on the blog here at the end of it all. I just won’t be talking so openly about my stories themselves.

Though it is kind of sad to be making such changes (one does get in the habit of things after 13 years of it), there is also something freeing about it as well. I’m still going to be writing. I’m still participating in a writing challenge. Story progress will still be made. I’m just taking a new approach this year.

Although watch me say all of this and then end up disappearing and getting into hyper-focus mode and pounding out an entire draft anyway. Old habits die hard… 😅

We shall see!

I’m going to miss sharing my progress with you all this year. But thank you all for always being a support. Your enthusiasm and cheering on brought me such joy and motivation every single year. It has meant the world. Seriously, I have the best friends. And though I won’t be doing Know the Novel posts or weekly updates, I will absolutely be around the FicFrenzy Discord server. I hope you know I am cheering everyone on as they tackle their own projects this fall!

This time of year really is such a wonderful season to give our stories the time and attention they deserve, and whatever this FicFrenzy looks like for me, that is my hope. Every bit of progress counts, friends!

Just two days until FicFrenzy begins! This year may be a little different for me but I am still SO excited!!! *gathers laptop and coffee and a kitty or two*

TIME TO CREATE SOME WORDS!

Alrighty, those are my fall writing plans! How about you? Are you participating in a challenge this year? What will this fall look like for you? I’d love to hear about it!