No NaNo Or How I Didn't Finish NaNoWriMo This Year

I had mentioned here that I was participating in NaNoWriMo this year in a previous post. (That post has since been deleted.) I'll have to admit I had high hopes for it this year. But life got in the way I won't be a NaNo author this year.

National Novel Writing Month is cool concept. I joined up a few years back but have never numbered among the winning participants. The logistics of writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a workable one. I have no doubt about that. In fact, I plan to aim for that sort of goal again. Obviously, at this point it won't be recorded. I won't get to have one of those nifty banners on my site identifying me as a NaNoWriMo winner.

At this point, my thought is to prep for writing a book in December. Will I make some official commitment to that? No. Heck, I could write two novellas instead. I think the important part is that I produce a boatload of fiction in the closing month of 2012.

I need to get back to writing stories. As mentioned in the previous post, I now have the flexibility now to be able to do this. I can focus on fiction pretty much exclusively and write novels, novellas, and short fiction.  I can publish my works via Founders House Publishing, send submissions to other publishers, and also do the same with short stories. There doesn't have to be a a division in my focus as a writer. This was an unexpected development.

So, no, I'm not a NaNo, but I might just get to be a novelist.

A New Chapter...

Earlier this year I had a different outlook on the trajectory of my writing career. I thought things were moving to the next level. I had made a transition to writing books for clients and was moving away from the small time web content and SEO articles I had been doing for years. You know, I had always wanted to write books--especially novels.

It has been a productive year. I've written/published more books in 2012 than ever before. It looked to be a banner year,  profitable one. Unfortunately, I was wrong. There was a bit of early success, but then despite the novels and novellas I published, I wasn't profitable. My lack of success put tremendous strains on my household finances. The freelance work I had been doing was dried up and I couldn't find more. I had a few book projects that failed to materialize.

A working writer needs income generating projects, and didn't find any. It all kind of made me think I would have to look beyond writing for money.

Then something happened recently.

My wife's salary got a dramatic upward boost. It opened up the possibility of me not needing to write for an immediate financial return. I could focus on other things like building up my publishing company or building up a fledgling freelance book design career. I could help other authors wanting to self-publish by providing flat fee services to get their books into print and formatted for ebooks. On a more mundane level, I could concentrate on taking better care of things at home.

A new chapter arrived suddenly and now I have a flexibility I have never had before. The question is how I will use it going forward and what direction will my writing career take now that I have a legitimate chance to reboot and redirect it from the ground up. I'll probably comment further on any developments going forward.

Offering Writing And Book Design Services

"Local writer and publisher Shaun Kilgore is offering book design services to other area authors. His services include preparing manuscripts for print publication, full cover design, and ebook formatting. These services allow writers to retain control of their work by professional self-publishing. He is also available for consultation for writing services. Interested parties may contact Kilgore via his website www.shaunkilgore.com or send him an email at shaun@shaunkilgore.com."

This is the business brief I put together that will hopefully be running in newspapers in my area in the near future.