November 1, 2020: Day 1—Word count: 0

Ah, here we are. November 1st and another NaNoWriMo adventure begins. 30 days to write 50,000 words and hopefully, have some semblance of a working manuscript. This year I am working on a brand-new project; an experiment in a horror/fantasy hybrid merging my two favorite genres. I have my villains, just came up with my main character, and have no idea what I am going to do with them. Guess we’ll find out together! This will be my 3rd official run at the 50k, having successfully completed it the last 2 years. My goal this year is to write consistently, every day; instead of procrastinating, stressing out, and the need to finish more than half the words in the last 2 days of the month (hammered out just over 26k). This year I brought some friends along for the ride; I suckered… er… um… convinced two of Horror Bound’s Senior contributors – Joe Scipione and Bud Fugate – to take part and they’ve graciously agreed to share their thoughts as well. So, hold on to that Halloween candy sugar rush, get a comfy seat, and come along on this mad dash to 50k during NaNoWriMo 2020.

Joe Scipione

This is my first time doing NaNoWriMo, although I’ve done camp NaNoWriMo once before, I was just editing a novel which isn’t as daunting as writing 50,000 new words over the course of a month.

Although I’ve never written quite this much in such a short period of time, I’m more excited to get into this project than anything else. I’ve already started in on it a little bit and I like how the characters are coming together so far. If there is a worry, it’s that I will run out of steam in the middle part of the novel. I don’t usually write a detailed outline for novels, but I do have certain scenes and events that I’m shooting for, and as long as I hit those major scenes, I think I will be in good shape. Hopefully, though I’ll get to the end of the month with a significant portion of this novel written and I’ll be able to finish it before the end of 2020.

Most of all though, as when I usually write the first draft of almost anything, I just want to have fun. I think this story is a fun one and will be fun to write. When that process is done I can worry about editing and getting it to the point where others can read it.

Bud Fugate

I could lie to people and pretend my middle name is ‘Spontaneous’, it wouldn't be too difficult, you know? My middle name starts with an S and I often troll people telling them secretly my middle name is Sunshine, but with me, spontaneity is assumed. Perhaps it’s the ADD/ADHD, perhaps it’s my WooWoo hippie mentality of living in the moment man, because, like, the past is past and the future is a creation all in your mind, man. I’m always collecting hobbies and interests. I cut down a tree in my backyard, next thing you know I’m peeling the bark off the wood and making chairs out of it and I spent $150 on wood carving tools, I tried to learn French for like 6 months, I’m trying to find a beat up truck to make an off-road racer for the Gambler 500, I have hyper specialized skills in the art of Shojin Ryori cooking and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I know how much milk a cow gives a day and there is so much random paint and art supplies in my house you would think I kidnapped Bob Ross. I find random things to do and do them to death until I get bored or I have conquered them as best as I can. Writing is no different.

The only thing I've ever written in my entire life before 2019 were some book reports in school, long, vulgar, trolling Facebook comments and once I even carved my name into a tree. When I saw a reddit link looking for writers for a horror site I obviously jumped on it, considering my resume it was a logical choice. Since then I have had somewhere between 4-10 pieces published a month across various sites and my good friends at Horror Bound suggested I try my hand in writing fiction. Having no experience reading fiction I thought “What the hell? I know letters!” and I did it, and people seem to like it (except my editor, I have tense issues, whatever that means). Among my good friends at Horror Bound are some legit literature fans. They read books, lots of them and not just weird ones’ like The Holographic Universe or Behold the Pale Horse, real life normal human books and not conspiracy theory garbage. They also write lots.

I mention all of this because in November 2020 I’ve decided to go ahead and participate in NaNoWriMo aka National Novel Writing Month where writers are challenged to write an entire novel, 50K words in just 30 Days. Having no experience in reading novels, let alone writing novels am I in over my head? Possibly. Do I have any idea how to write a novel? I’m guessing no because just yesterday I was Google-ing “How do chapters work” but the question is;

Does it even fucking matter?

No! It does not! Life is short my friends. Too short to be worried about, “Oh man this is going to be hard/embarrassing/impossible/time consuming” or steering clear of something because you don’t know how to do it. You weren’t born potty trained. It was hard to learn, it was time consuming and it was embarrassing trying to climb on the pot, but you did it. I mean, I assume you are not just lying on the floor defecating on yourself because you steered clear because you didn't know how to do it.

Am I nervous about NaNoWriMo? Yup! Is there a great chance of failure? Yup! But you only have one life to live and you can live that life trying new and interesting things, overcoming adversities and going on new adventures or you can spend your life lying on your floor, shitting on yourself, afraid of change, afraid of newness and afraid of growth. What’s it gonna be?

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Written by Dave, Joe, and Bud!