My very first NaNoWriMo was Sorority Vampires, a novel about…vampires. In a sorority.
(It was a little more than that, but not terribly much more.)
A few NaNos later, I decided to write the sequel, Fraternity Werewolves.
Some day I may go back and rewrite them, shine them up, make them better, because in their present forms they are not great. But even if your NaNo novel is kinda crappy, that doesn’t mean you can’t mine it for short story material!
Fast forward to the present day, where Chaosium, Inc., released The Mark of the Beast, which contains my short story “The Better to Type With, My Dear.” It’s a story about college kids, and werewolves, and it was totally taken out of Fraternity Werewolves, fixed up, and sent off. And accepted. And now, published.
Nothing you write is useless, my friends. Sometimes the only value is in the practice you get writing it, and sometimes a decade later it gets you in another anthology.
It’s a weird world.
But She Had Wings 