11/20/2022 - NaNoWriMo, the End of the 2022 Con Schedule, and Other Stories

Hello everyone and happy almost Thanksgiving,

I am thrilled and thoroughly relieved that last week, I wrapped up my final Conference/Convention for 2022. My 17 author events for this calendar year capped off with FyreCon, where I taught a couple of workshops (including the Star Trek TNG Formula for Short Story Writing) and spoke on a panel with several Writers of the Future winners. We were asked to share how our author journeys have progressed, which for me meant reminiscing about a long year of traveling, teaching, selling books, and a lot of networking.

17 weekends worth of events is nearly a third of the available weekends in a year, and all but one were first-time experiences. I can't say I plan to hit quite as many events next year, but I'm incredibly grateful ('tis the season) for the opportunities to hit the ground running and grow myself as an author in 2022.

FyreCon was (and will continue to be) a virtual event, so that made the travel time much easier, but it wasn't until after that event had wrapped that I finally put away my convention gear—until January 2023 at MarsCon in Virginia.

Of course, courtesy of Zoom, Youtube, and an abundance of book launches in the community, I'll still be making online appearances…

Here, Have Some Videos

Zoom Book Launch Parties started as mostly private events to gather friends together in celebration of new book releases. While that's still their main function, they've grown into more regularly-scheduled content in the indie scifi/fantasy scene, and some are publicly available on Youtube.

In case you missed it, The Impossible Moon, book 4 of THIS FINE CREW, went live with a launch on 10/28. The event, with some passage readings and artwork, can be found here:

Zoom Book Launch Party "The Impossible Moon" by Mike Jack Stoumbos

A new series, "The Seventh Shaman," went live with Running from the Gods, covered in this launch event:

Zoom Book Launch Party "Running from the Gods" by D. T. Read

It has now been followed by Mountains of the Gods, released on November 18—in other words, still very hot off the presses.

A grand ol' time at the Murderbirds Author QnA, featuring several excellent writers sharing about their stories. Check it out and get excited, here:

Murderbirds Anthology - Author QnA

…and enjoy the appearance of the parrot :)

And finally, if you are fantasy reader—especially modern-day, "rural" fantasy—we'll be doing another launch event on Tuesday, 12/6. You can find the details for the unveiling of "The Elements" series by Tiffany Vega here: https://www.facebook.com/events/879916386564191

NaNoWriMo Is Upon Us (a note for my fellow writers)

Confession: I am not on track to hit 50,000 words of my own fiction this month. I know, it's NaNo, and I run off-season and on-season NaNo events for author support groups, but sometimes other necessary tasks get in the way. Edits for the Murderbirds Anthology and the non-fiction side of author life are taking up more than their usual share of time, and those priorities aren't going to change by the end of the month.

I'm not saying this to complain or as a prelude to quitting. Just acknowledging that 2022 might not be a NaNo-winning year for me. At least not in the official sense. Still, I'm going to keep cranking out the words and see how far I get. Because, if I can't get 50, I'd still like to write (let's say) 40,000 words this month, which is much more doable.

I say this because I know a lot of people who give up on NaNo because they fall behind, and I'm very firmly on the side of trying anyway. If you are working on a book and need to hear this from someone—anyone—go ahead and restructure your goal if you need to. Give yourself permission to change the 50,000 target to something that presents some challenge but allows for grace. If you need to focus on 1K/day (30,000 total, if you maintain for the month), or writing at least 15 out of 30 days, or maybe having 3K days on Saturdays—whatever it is, make it the best you can, and then take pride in your progress.

Personally, I'm around 27,500 words at the moment, which is behind schedule, but I have 10 days left. If I average 2250 a day, I'll break that 50K mark yet.

Here's hoping Thanksgiving week, NaNoWriMo, and the smooth slide into December are everything you want them to be.

Cheers,

Mike Jack Stoumbos