Blogtoberfest < NaNoWriMo

Bad planning on their part, really. They should have put at least a month in between the two for respective recovery and preparation. It’s hard to pull a blog post out of your arse when you’re too busy researching the harvesting season of chickpeas.

Yes, I’ve decided I am doing NaNoWriMo (thanks for the encouragement!). I have a vague plot, some characters, and a setting. I’ve spent the last few days doing some ‘research’, mostly from wikipedia (it’s a novel, it doesn’t have to be that accurate, right?). I’ve made vast lists of questions that I need to answer before I can write, or while writing. I have trawled the internet for pictures related to my topic (my desktop now cycles through them to be a constant source of inspiration). I feel – almost – prepared.

However I am a teensy bit terrified. In a perfect November, I would aim for 1667 words a day. I’m already losing at least five evenings to already-planned events, so that brings it up to 2000 words immediately. Factor in my notorious inability to stick to *anything* for that long and I’m going to have to write 10,000 words a day for the five days I manage to do any writing at all. While probably being completely dissatisfied and disheartened by the entire thing because I am not allowed to edit.

However, fear not – I’m not disheartened yet. How can I be disheartened with all these pictures of goats on my desktop?

NaNoWriMo.

I’ve just learned of the existence of National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you take November to spaff out 50,000 words, and ba-baaa! You have a draft for a novel. This, as I tweeted earlier, interests me.

Like billions of other kids before me, I wanted to be a writer. I had folders full of stories. I wrote science fiction, I wrote Mills & Boon, I wrote some alarmingly violent horror. Then one day, there came that ‘careers’ day. Careers days were excellent for those of my classmates who knew from the age of five that they wanted to be a vet. They could be pointed towards the right A-levels, pointed towards the right work experience, and were generally a joy to assist. I, apparently, was not. We were told to write down a list of five jobs we would like to do. Three of mine were writer, fashion designer, and astrophysicist. I think I was asked what I wanted to write about. I didn’t know. And that was the end of it. Barely anyone makes it as a novelist. And journalism is really hard to get into. Might as well give up now.

I’m not trying to say I HAVE ALWAY WONTED 2 B A RITER AND THEY TRAMPLD ON MAI DREEMS but come on. They didn’t even try. I would try so hard to think of things I could see myself doing and every time it was greeted by ‘you can’t do that’ and no alternatives. I am so jealous of people who know what they want to do with their lives. You do not know how easy you have it.

Anyway, bitterness aside, I have several novels in me. They try to come out sometimes, before paranoia and self-doubt beat them back into submission. I get an idea. I ponder excitedly, thinking of what I can do with it. Then I do a little research, realise how little I know about the subject. I don’t want to look stupid. Then I start to wonder if anyone else has come up with the idea, and I’ve just not read it. How bad would that be? Unintentional plagiarism doesn’t look like that from the outside. And, if something has already been written, how arrogant is it to think that I could write anything better?

This is why NaNoWriMo seems like a good idea. There are no rules. Just get the words out of you. It doesn’t matter how good it is, just that it is. After that, the only way is up.

And there are signs. I have conveniently discovered its existence just before the relevant month. As I was sat wondering if it would be a good thing to do, a new concept and proto-plot popped into my mind from nowhere. As I was adding the NaNoWriMo link to the top of the page, the http text appeared in the ‘enter link here’ box before I’d even typed it.

So I’m tempted. I have nine days to decide if my idea can be expanded into a full novel with interesting characters and plot devices that would make Aristotle proud. What do you think I should do?