NaNoWriMo

No, it isn’t the sound of a police car crashing. It’s the annually held National Novel Writing Month and I’ve signed up! Mind you, it may well end up being the sound of the ambulance bearing  men in white coats coming to scrape up what is left of my sanity in December. OMG! What was I thinking? 50,000 words in 30 days is a totally mad idea.

Fortunately, I am not alone in this apparent insanity. A number of my friends and online chums, like Hestia, have also signed up…OK, so, if they’re my friends, they’re probably barking too. Most, if not all, of them are far better writers than I, but I will give it my best shot and try to make a good fist of it.

Actually, I’m rather amazed with myself. When it was first suggested by my friend Viv, my immediate response was that I didn’t think I had been writing particularly well lately, had no ideas whatsoever for a plot and seemed to be suffering something of a creativity bypass. However, within the hour, I’d changed my mind. A plot seemed to suggest itself, characters were jostling to be acknowledged and the random motets of ideas were starting to accrete and form a coherent storyline in my mind. So I signed up (30th Sept).

Over the next 12-24 hours, the plot and characters developed in my mind, evolved, changed almost entirely and in a quite remarkably short space of time, had settled down to something I was really quite pleased with. In fact, I became so absorbed with the ideas that last night was the first time I’ve got to bed before 1am since. I’ve been furiously typing away, trying to get the plot outlines, character backgrounds and the snatches of dialogue and descriptive passages scribbled down before I forget them. I don’t know if this constitutes cheating or not, but on the basis of my scratchings, I’m not going to be able to do 2000 words per day unless I forgo sleep altogether, so I need all the preparation I can get.

The challenge states it is all about quantity and not quality, but if that is the case, I could just write “blah” 50,000 times. If I am going to do this, I aim to do this as well as the time constraint permits and to this end I have already lined up a proofreader and sounding board (she likes the plot. Yay!)

I’m really excited about this challenge, but I just wish it was starting sooner. I’d hate to lose the momentum of that excitement before I even got to the start line and as a mercurial Gemini, this is a real possibility.

Wish me luck!