I realized that I hadn't written a wrap-up post after JeRoWriMo this year when I received my finisher pin in the mail from Nancy Herkness, who organizes the event every year. And my finisher pin came along with a 10-year finisher pin because somehow this is my tenth time finishing the challenge!
For those who don't know, JeRoWriMo stands for Jersey Romance Writing Month. It's a writing challenge that New Jersey Romance Writers members can participate in. A little like NaNoWriMo, it challenges its participants to write a certain number of words in a month—in this case, thirty thousand words in February. And I guess I've managed to complete this challenge ten times!
My first time participating, I was working on what would become my first published novel, The Prince's Consort. Every time, I've managed to be so productive during that month for a couple of reasons. I'm not going to lie—one reason is that I'm very competitive, mostly with myself. If there is a challenge, I have to complete it. I cannot accept that failure (this may not be a great thing all the time). But it does push me to write words and make progress so I can write at least thirty thousand words and get that sparkly pin at the end.
Another reason, maybe more important, is the the community. Writing is so often a solitary experience. We sit in front of our screens, hands on keyboards—or with pen and notebook in hand—and we try get words out, to create characters, relationships, and stories and end up potentially beating our heads against the desk sometimes too. All on our own. JeRoWriMo creates a group in which the participants come together to accomplish this challenge. Daily, we report our word counts and our successes and difficulties. We cheer each other on and give encouragement and understanding. It's both accountability and support, something that can help so much.
As I said, my first time doing JeRo, I worked on The Prince's Consort. Last year, JeRo helped me finish To Love the Dragon King, which took three years to write because of the pandemic, stress, and issues with anxiety. This year, it gave me a jolt in my writing of To Know a Dragon Spy—which was supposed to be finished before now, but has been delayed by my first bout of covid and the post-covid fatigue that followed and messed all my plans up. And in all the years in between, it has given me motivation and support while writing some of my other books too. I'm sure I'll participate again next year. Until then, congratulations and thanks to my fellow finishers and participants!
And now back to writing...
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