Tuesday, October 30, 2012

NaNoWriMo

About a week ago I foolishly enrolled for NaNoWriMo. I blame Daughter-in-law: she mentioned it and it seemed like a good idea at the time. So I filled in the form  and signed up. 

Now, with November just 1 day away, I'm wondering how mad I was. An email arrived form the organisers today telling me all the things I should be doing at this point, like telling all and sundry so everyone knows and will enquire regularly how it's gong, thus keeping me on my toes. Except I'm not sure I want to be kept on my toes.

One of the things that pleased me about the initial email I had when I enrolled was the phrase 'embrace imperfection!' In today's society where we're all so keen to be (or look) slimmer, prettier, younger, such a concept is an alien one but one I rather like. However what they mean is that I have to switch off my internal editor - and that won't be so easy. The idea is to write and not edit. Not at all. Not until you get to the end. I'm hyperventilating at the thought.

The aim is to write - oh, I didn't explain what NaNoWriMo was: National Write a Novel in a Month - 50,000 words in November. That's ... an awful lot each and every day. NaNoWriMo has been going for a number of years and I know people who've done it - or tried it before but as I have a new novel in mind and it's in the very early stages, now seems a good time to go for it.

I mean, why not add a little more pressure to my life? 

Is it a girl thing? I had loads to do this afternoon so I decided to add an extra two things to the list. Not absolutely necessary things but hey, I've only got a bible study to prepare.

Going to eat my home-made cheese and chilli bread and butternut squash soup now. (See what I mean? We could have had beans on toast) 

5 comments:

Katney said...

Son#2 did that one year. I think he lasted about a week. Maybe not a girl thing. Just a thing that may inspire some, not work for others. Though I must say that one thing that keeps me from writing is that I edit the first paragraph to death. Every time I might come back to something, I would start at the beginning, fixing fixing fixing. That first sentence would always be great.

I wonder how many actually published novels have come out of NaNoWriMo. (And it probably should, by now, be InNoWriMo.)

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

I know a few ladies that have done that... naNoWriMo thing... I could not do it ... you do sooooo much already too!!!

Ole Phat Stu said...

@Katney, here's a first sentence for you:

Batman "was a dark and stormy knight". ;-)

Liz Hinds said...

I'm a compulsive editor too, katney. That's going to be the hardest part.

I'll see how long I last, anne!

GLEDWOOD said...

You're supposed to tell all and sundry your ideas? Hmmm... I'm not sure about that...