Have you heard of #NaNoWriMo ? It’s the National Novel Writing Month that takes place online every November. The aim is to write 50,000 words of a novel, or other written project. In the past I have had a go at smaller projects.
Last year I aimed to write 15,000 words for a children’s book, which I achieved and published earlier this year, called A Fairy in Flight.
This year, however, I aimed to do the whole thing. It seemed a huge mountain to climb. Split into a daily word count it’s 1,667 each and every day. Some days I didn’t manage it. On other days the words flowed out of my fingertips onto the keyboard and into the word document as if someone else was writing them.
Although I had a basic plan of the story, it seemed the characters in the novel had other ideas and started going off on tangents. There was also the thorny problem of the characters’ names. I’ve never had such a problem before. I realised a few of the names I had chosen weren’t suitable for a variety of reasons. One character had their name changed four times!
However, I am pleased to report that I achieved the 50,000 words on 28 November and got my winner’s certificate. I hope other people who were taking part were pleased with their progress. I think NaNoWriMo is a wonderful way to get you writing, even if you don’t quite reach the number of words you were hoping for. If you are a writer who has thought of taking part, I urge you to have a go next year.
I also heard that a story I wrote some time ago about a homeless man is included in the above anthology compiled by the Lymington Community Association. It’s been published on LuLu.com. So in spite of currently being in lockdown number two, November was a pretty good month in writing terms.
WATERKEYN WORDS 