NANOWRIMO

For those of you not in the know, Nanowrimo is a worldwide movement where you sign up to the NANOWRIMO website with the express task of writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.

Many books have been written during Nanowrimo by authors other than myself, although I have tried infrequently to have a go with mixed results. You know, those times when you think you have a good story, but really you just have a good beginning and it peeters out quite quickly into blurgh. Before 2019, I would say the most amount of words I managed was 12,000 and these were not words I look back on fondly and did not grow into anything worthwhile even after November.

But 2019 was a funny old year, a bit different to previous ones. For one thing because my children were/ are? getting older, I had a couple of hours to spare each day. From 0 to 2 hours is a big increase, I can't say it was a 200% increase because that would obviously be a numeric misnomer, but 2 hours seems like an infinite expanse of time when you are used to having none whatsoever.

(It did have its downside in January, because after years of writing nothing at all I forced myself to write a novel that probably will never see the light of day. I did this with the intent of proving to myself I could still write. Needless to say, that proof was not forthcoming.)

I digress, after going to the SFWeekender in October 2019 on some late giveaway tickets I met a few authors. The ones I remember most are Ian Whates and Zen Cho who were two of the most jovial and happiest of authors ever to discuss their writing lives in the vague hope of selling a few copies of their books. I didn't have the courage to mention: 'I'm a writer, please read some of my stuff', but Zen Cho somehow surmised this anyway and spoke to me at length about how writing was worth it even if you aren't particularly successful. (She actually is successful, but that is beside the point). Anyway, after the weekender and listening to all these writers I decided it was time to write something good with my 2 hours a day.

On 1st November 2019 I entered NANOWRIMO for the fourth or fifth time with the idea of attempting to write something completely different to what I had written before. I was going to write a fantasy novel! This started out as REDACTED REDACTED. I can't say any more without giving it away. Needless to say, I started well, Chapter One was okay, and then Chapter Two to Four were okay, and then I had finished beginning and actually had to get into the nitty gritty of the story. So I slowed down, and thought this was going the same way as my previous efforts, precisely nowhere.

In week 3 something happened, I introduced a few new characters and the ball was rolling again. By then end of Nanowrimo I actually managed 43,000 words. That is the most I probably will ever manage on a Nanowrimo, but I was impressed and then drifted a bit. It took until the end of January 2020 to write the remaining 29,000 words but I did it. I finished the first draft of my first fantasy novel and currently am facing the horror of completing the second draft.

I can honestly this is better than my previous attempted no go science fiction novel which may be buried forever in digital oblivion. I just have to make my fantasy novel publishable now and perhaps try a different publishing route than I have in the past.

Onward we go...