It’s finally Autumn.

Okay. I know technically, it starts all the way in September, and October tends to be very Autumnish as well. But November has that… cool month feel to it. All the trees are shimmering shades of red and gold and purple, and the crisp Autumn air. That feeling of all the things on the horizon. The holiday season, college finals, winter — I shiver writing the very word, I’m much more of a fall girl.

And of course, I could never forget NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. If you haven’t heard of it before, NaNoWriMo is a month long writing contest where thousands of writers attempt to write 50,000 words of a new novel in a month.

I’m not sure how many people are actually doing it this year, though. According to my brief searching on Tumblr and Google, writers are shifting to other platforms due to the official NaNoWriMo site supporting the use of generative AI writing. It’s a bit startling, and disappointing. Sure, AI can be helpful with grammar and generating ideas. But when it starts to cross over into the creative side–especially taking creativity and hard work from writers, without their consent–it just rubs me the wrong way.

I will still be doing Nano this year, but only for my own benefit, through a different website. I’ve done NaNo since 2022, I’ve never attempted 50k… and this is not the year I shall. In 2022, I wrote 10k. In 2023, I think I wrote 15k, though I can’t quite remember. This year, I’m going to choose to not dramatically burn myself out and instead write 20k of In Control related works. Slowly but surely working myself up to more and more words….

And setting a goal under 50k is completely okay–I’ve known writers who did 5k, writers who did 35k, 40k, and everything in between. While I applaud the people who have the time and energy to scribble out that much content, I also applaud the people who band together and set a more manageable goal for themselves.

Take care of yourself. If you don’t think you’ll have time with the buzz of schoolwork, life in general and your mass of crazy aunts coming over for Thanksgiving, don’t force yourself. What’s most important is writing what’s important to you–and if the little push of a word count and deadline helps that, by all mean take advantage of it.

Alright, without further ado–it’s time for the prompts of the month!

First off, our short story prompt:

Your character finds a journal tucked into a tree nook. Covered in autumn leaves, with a rusted lock and key holding it shut. Inside is a name that they immediately recognize, and the date on the first page is from last week. The only problem is, the person this handwriting belongs to has been dead for years.

And, our poetry prompt of the week:

crackling fires // falling leaves // bruised hearts

Feel free to use these in any way you like, and have fun with it!

I’ll be posting my excerpt from at least one of these later this month, and November’s Book of the Month, so be sure to look out for those. In the meantime, let me know in the comments: Are you taking up the challenge of NaNoWriMo this year? Why or why not, and if so, what’s your word count goal?

Until next time, stay warm, y’all.

~ Z.Rise