Good morning, all!

First, I am happy to announce that I have re-released What is Depression? (the first volume of Hope in Darkness) with a more professional cover and additional exercises! You’ll notice updated product pictures – please bear with me as I haven’t yet figured out how to get the website to standardize the size of the pictures and listings. 😊

But that’s not the main reason I am writing to you! I have committed myself to participating in NaNoWriMo. For those of you who have never heard of it, NaNoWriMo is both an event and a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people write! The idea of NaNoWriMo is that you start on November 1^st with an idea, commit to a word count, and write without editing for an entire month. Hundreds of thousands of writers sign up each year, from first-time students to professionals, and commit together to make the month of November magical.

To do it absolutely right, you’re supposed to start with a brand-new idea for a novel that has nothing written yet. I’m going to be defying that because I have committed to writing at least 20,000 words of the Hope in Darkness series. I have also committed to a stretch goal of an additional 30,000 words of Hope in Darkness and 50,000 words of my fantasy novel series Paradia.

For reference, because I think only writers think in terms of word counts, What is Depression? contained just shy of 6,000 words, and this article is about 300 words. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban tops out a little above 105,000.

Is 100,000 words ambitious? Absolutely. Intimidating? …admittedly, yes, it is. But I’m excited, and I hope you’re excited too!

If you’d like to participate in NaNoWriMo, it’s not too late to sign up! If you’d like to support me in my quest, please consider becoming a sponsor below!