An audacious challenge & how to write a mystery!

I had an idea that's so audacious (some could say ridiculous) that I needed to rush over here and work out the kinks with y'all.

Before that, though, let's get the housekeeping out of the way! Real quick, I promise.

For our Double Stream Day, we'll aim for Friday, August 30th at 3:30pm CDT and Saturday, August 31st at 10:30am CDT. I'll post back up here with the actual links before then!

And for our Crafts & Drafts book club, I've picked HOW TO WRITE A MYSTERY: A HANDBOOK FROM MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA.

This was published in 2021 and has a whole bunch of different authors contributing. It's segmented out by "The Rules and Genres," "Other Mysteries," "The Writing," and "After the Writing." I skimmed a few of the essays and enjoyed them! This book also repeatedly came up in all my searches for "best craft books on writing mysteries" (and I think Zara also suggested it) bahaha.

Though this book is clearly more about how to write capital m Mystery, I think all writers can benefit from learning how to layer in clues and hints along the way, something that is so integral to this genre.

So hopefully it'll be a hit! I have my fingers crossed! We'll plan to have this one done by mid-October to discuss. :)

Okay, okay, onto the ridiculous/audacious goal!

Some of y'all will be aware of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding NaNoWriMo (here is a limited list of the issues, though it doesn't touch on the whole experience of the volunteer MLs). For me, the initial disappointment has only compounded by how terribly the organization has handled the aftermath.

All that to say: I won't be participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

I've been attempting 50,000 words in November since I was in middle school and ADORED the old forums. I've been an ML, I've raised money for the organization for so many years and in so many different ways, and I've been a longtime donor, too.

If I could extract the organization from my experience, I would. I'd keep participating because I so love the community. But unfortunately, that's just not something I can do with how involved I've been. It really makes me sad. Sad and disappointed.

(This isn't judgment if y'all still want to participate! I know a handful of writers in person who do NaNo each year but don't use any of the resources. They just heard about the 50K challenge and agreed to keep it up in November. That's it! That's all it is to a lot of people.)

Anyways, the idea of NOT participating has been weighing on me. For nearly TWO DECADES (omg), I've had something to look forward to at the tail end of the year. It gives me all the writerly vibes. A crazy goal, a big community, just so much fun.

I'm so incredibly lucky to have y'all that I feel like I get community year-round now, in a way that Younger Me could never have anticipated, so that part feels mostly covered.

Which left...what would I challenge myself to? If I'm not bound by the 50K in November...what would I do?

I'd do more. And I'd do it for longer.

100K words. 3 months.

I'm thinking October, November, and December to close out the year and ALSO because I should definitely have A Closet Full of Cauldrons off to beta readers before then. (I'm tentatively aiming for mid-September.)

So my real question is: Would anyone want to join me?

100K is a really big ask. But it's also less words per day (~1099). And has the wonderful benefit of being closer to a completed draft length for most fiction writers.

My husband pointed out that December is basically a wash of a month for a lot of us, though, so it might make the challenge harder. (Somehow I always delude myself into thinking I can get actual work done during the holidays. And then, of course, I don't, bahahah.)

The other difficult part is this doesn't give a whole lot of "prep" time unless we bring back Preptember (lolol). I'm between two ideas personally, and will definitely need that time to figure out which to choose.

Anyways, IF you're interested in joining me, besides an extra Discord channel, what would you like to see? Would you want some kind of scheduled check-ins? How often? Would you want a template to track your words? Let me know! :)

Excited to write with y'all this weekend. Until then, happy writing!! :)