[Cross-posted on OnWriters.wordpress.com.]

For the third time, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo. The first time I did it, in high school, I didn’t finish. The second time, while I was doing my undergrad at York University, I was so swamped with schoolwork that it took me almost the entire month to write 10,000 words and then I pounded out the last 40,000 in about 3 or 4 days mostly because people didn’t believe that I could.

This year? This year, I want to write something so I can enter it for the Terry Pratchett Prize. Will I have a good shot at winning with something I wrote in just a few weeks? Maybe not. I have, however, put a lot of thought into the concept and outline, so I don’t think it will be terrible. In any case, my NaNoWriMo novel will at the very least be a good exercise in writing; it will get my creative juices flowing for whatever my next project is, perhaps.

In the meantime, this website really depressed me – though it may have some valid points – to the extent that I almost didn’t want to promote it by linking to it. In opposition to its general theme: writers should never be discouraged from the act of writing; though it may not always be literary gold, it has value in the act itself for the individual. It’s the job of the publishing industry to sort through the slush pile.