My NaNoWriMo word count is 2,234. That used to be my daily average, but that’s all I wrote for that story in the first half of the month.

I’m not giving up.

In past years I’ve been better prepared and had greater resources than I do now. I also have other writing commitments now, namely the monthly short story for The Cities of Luna and the weekly chapters for The Flip of a Coin. Now, all those are in the same universe, which makes my life somewhat simpler, but still they are all different storylines, and my OCD brain dislikes jumping from one storyline to another. This NaNo has been an exercise in doing that, and although it’s been difficult, it hasn’t been impossible. Still, I prefer to have just one story to concentrate on at a time. And to eat dinner out every other night. And have someone else vacuum and do the dishes. And…

Well, I ask too much. For now. Perhaps, in future years, I’ll be able to luxuriate in those little things that make life and writing so much easier.

Now, the Shouting Into the Void part…

On the blog, I can see how many views and visitors I get even if they never leave a comment. On Amazon and Smashwords, I can see how many stories I’ve sold. (Still a very low number every month.) The serial I put up on the All For Science site is more difficult to judge because although I’m a contributor, it’s not my blog. Gee, it would be nice if I got little messages from random strangers reading the story telling me how much they like it, but that’s highly unrealistic. Even if there are a handful of people who feel that way, they probably won’t send me fan mail.

I feel like I’m shouting into the void. I release my stories, but only with minimal promo, which means they get lost in the avalanche of other stories available for readers to enjoy. I firmly believe that the series can find its audience, but it simply hasn’t happened yet. I want to put the energy it deserves into promo, and give the series its best chance of success.

That won’t happen until after Christmas. I had originally hoped to have a collection of The Cities of Luna available for this holiday season, but I realized months ago that it was an unrealistic timeline. I plan to do a kickstarter in early 2017 and have the print version of the collection ready for Spacefest in the spring.

My ROW80 goals are always NaNocentric in the fourth round. This week, I haven’t made the goals. I’m hoping to turn that around, though, and even if I don’t get caught up, I want to feel like I’m back on the wagon.

And maybe, just maybe, next year’s NaNoWriMo can be one where I’m well prepared ahead of time and can enjoy all the extra little supports like going out to eat and having someone else do the housework.

Maybe.