As you may or may not know, I've been living in Japan since August. And one of my larger goals besides updating this website for the first time in what would be several months, is to get the writing back on track. 

I've mentioned this numerous times when I was busy teaching as an adjunct at North Central State College, and I've always broken the promise I made for myself; that I would get my novel series up and running and resubmit it for either agent representation, or go right into publication.

With Nanowrimo coming up soon, I decided to work on an old goal while I am here -- to do a rewrite of my thesis novel, The Name and the Key. I've worked on it here and there since arriving, even flirting with the idea of changing the whole thing into third-person POV (a change which didn't work well for very long). I know the biggest thing I need to do is rewrite the beginning in order to deliver the plot at a much faster tempo, but I also want to make my lead character, Lily, more endearing to the reader. 

Nanowrimo's main objective is to drive writers to draft a complete novel during the month of November. I've participated in the past and have failed every time. I think my brain (or maybe my heart) will not let me jump into new (major) projects until the old ones have reached their ultimate completion. So I'm not going to fight it anymore. Even though new ideas are popping up in my head almost every single day since coming to Japan, I really feel the push to get The Name and the Key out there, moreso than I have in a long time. 

Although I will not directly participate in Nanowrimo  I am still going to use these thirty days to try to fix this book, and get it out there into the world. I've taken far too long already.

Best of luck to you all for the month of November, and happy writing!