Episode 64: Let's talk about NaNoWriMo

Today marks the one year of the Fable and the Verbivore podcast! Since it’s nearing the end of November, we decided to talk about our writing experiences during NaNoWriMo and our gratitude for this space. And especially our thankfulness for you, our listeners!

In this conversation, we discuss how Beth (Fable) ‘won’ NaNo very early (Nov. 11th) and how important it is to celebrate the milestones we cross and to recognize our strengths in addition to our weaknesses. Laura (the Verbivore) shares some of her experiences researching WWII for the historical fiction novel she’s writing, as well as the challenges of shifting through the layers of complexity when digging into any historical timeframe.

We also discuss our different methods for creating. The Verbivore goes back into scenes and edits as she goes, and Fable edits once she has her first draft complete. Fable writes each scene in the order that they occur in her story. The Verbivore writes the scene that she’s emotionally ready to tackle. Though it is humorous just how different our writing processes are, the important thing for any writer is to recognize that all our brains function differently and to find what is most effective for you.

Towards the end, we talk about identifying when our writing is most effective and when it’s not. And how during NaNoWriMo those hours that we don’t use for writing words can be used effectively for research, consuming other creative works, and self-care.

We hope you enjoy this episode and thank you for listening! We will be going on a 3-week hiatus following this episode to finish up our writing projects, have a little down time, and brainstorm future episodes of Fable and The Verbivore. Our Christmas episode will be posting on December 22nd.

Until then - keep reading, and writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Fable and the Verbivore are both taking part in NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month. The standard goal is to write 50,000 words in any work during the 30 days of November. Here is a link to their website for more information: https://nanowrimo.org/what-is-nanowrimo

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)