author – Page 66 – Robin Writes

Someone asked me, “What’s the big deal about NaNo?”

I shrugged. I don’t get it, either!

Oh, sure, I tried NaNo once, several years ago; I wanted to “win.” Then I found out I didn’t actually “win” anything, just bragging rights. Well, okay then, not my style.

Speaking of style, with NaNo, you have to be committed. That’s not my style either. I mean, commitment, sure, but not to a particular word count each day. That’s not how I write—when the muse speaks, I write. Constantly, if that’s what she says, or sporadically. It depends.

Oh, yeah, back to the “winning” thing. If you complete the challenge, i.e., write 50K words, you win! Theoretically, you’ve now written a book. Except you kind of haven’t, as the average novel is 80K words. That’s almost two NaNos.

But a lot of people really enjoy the challenge, and for some, they might never start those books they’ve been wanting to write, if it weren’t for NaNo.

Most people I know divide out the 50K word count by 30 days, which gives them a daily goal of just over 1600 words. What many fail to consider, though, is that some days are busier than others, some days you may not have any inspiration whatsoever, and there’s also Thanksgiving . . .

When I did NaNo, I actually subtracted two days for Thanksgiving, since I’m the cook, and a day for my youngest son’s birthday; then I took off four more days for a “day off.” Now, granted, I never actually stayed in the game as far as Thanksgiving, but my goal each day was nearly 2200 words.

But here’s the thing: you can do this however you want, whenever you want; you’ve all read about the “best” way to write a book, but I’m telling you—it doesn’t matter, as long as you get it done. And if NaNo helps, that’s great! Besides, NaNo has cool stuff like community forums and write-ins and actual, real people get-togethers. So, if that’s your thing, go for it!

Funny, two years ago I was working on REUSED and it happened to be November. Didn’t even occur to me to sign up for NaNo because I was so focused on this sequel to REDUCED. I had written a couple pages or so in October, then got sidetracked and put it away. Just so happened that I pulled it back out on November 1st. I finished the entire thing on November 30, in spite of those aforementioned days off.

That put my daily word count at around 3300. And that’s pretty rough, especially when you have other things to do like, you know, a life. Of course, my third book, RECYCLED, didn’t come out until the following July. I think it took me that long to recover.

RECYCLED came in at 4000 words a day. Three weeks. So I had my own NaNo. In June.

Last week, I talked about what you should look for in the context of bugging out; where and how and why. If you’ve done your homework, and scouted out locations and routes, you can be fairly confident that where you end up will actually be the right place.

If, however, you’re searching for a spot now for a future, unknown eventuality, what do you need to look for?

You need to decide, early on in the process, what use you’re going to make of the land you eventually purchase. For instance, we want a lot of trees that will protect us from the weather, from prying eyes and possibly intrusion (physical and auditory), with some open areas for gardening and pasture. We’ll grow most of what we need and hunt and trade for other things.

For power, we’ll go on-grid if that’s possible, off-grid if it’s not; we want live water, and we’ll drill a well and add septic. So far, so good. And of course, we also need to be able to get to it, and maybe quickly.

Yesterday, I talked to someone who had been worried about providing everything for her family. They raise chickens and her husband hunts; they have a small garden, but not big enough to grow everything they’ll need.

And then a light came on.

She was at a church function one day; the congregation includes several farmers who had brought produce to share. They were able to trade meat for vegetables!

So, you see, you don’t have to do it all—focus on your strengths and find a good community or prep group, or local sources, for the things you can’t produce yourself.

For me, I don’t really like game, and I’m not entire sure I could eat something that I kill. I have no problem eating something that SOMEONE ELSE kills . . . And I don’t do chickens. Ick. Nasty things. So we’ll trade for eggs too. My husband is on his own if he wants fried chicken!

But I can grow things, and cook and bake. Of course, many things, everyday items and those you make, can be traded too and can also provide a little income, most likely before SHTF.

Again, the better prepared you are, the better off you’ll be, whether it’s SHTF or a natural disaster or even just a tough winter or slow growing season. There are all kinds of possibilities, but you have to know your strengths and your weaknesses and be willing, sometimes, to compromise.