November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I am taking part.

I decided to give the challenge a go this year; I read a lot about it last year, when Elora was a tiny baby, and I thought, back then, that if my head was not so clouded with sleeplessness and crazy hormones, I would like to give it a go. Since then, writing has been one of those things that I think I ought to do, and which I want to do, but which I do not prioritise.

The challenge has me aiming to write 50,000 words in November.

I am not sure if I ever thought that I would be able to write 50,000 words – especially in November, which is such a busy month! I originally set myself a goal to write for one hour, or for at least 1,000 words, each night. It is so easy to make excuses though, and I have made a few! Now, after a bit of stern-words-to-self, I am looking forward to my hour or so of writing in the evening. I believe (and still believe) that even if I don’t make it to 50,000 words (in 12 days!), the sheer task of forcing myself to write, and getting into a new pattern, will be very rewarding.

Now, on day 18, I am almost on track to finishing my 50k words. My 1,000 words per day has more than doubled, as I am becoming a bit entrenched in the stories that I am writing. Today, in an hour, I wrote 2,331 words. Monte calls me “Miss wordy mcword,” because I’m tapping away on my keyboard so rigourously.

However, the words I am writing are not necessarily that good. NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, not quality. At least, being draft #1, I am getting ideas down. I find, sometimes, that I take the long route to say something, rather than say it succinctly. I suppose, however, that we do not read novels or the like to get the information passed on succinctly. We want it drawn out so much so that we feel that we’ve lost a friend when we finish the book. I wonder if anybody will ever be sad when they finish reading my story.

I reckon they’ll be bloody happy ;)

I am finding a lot of joy in writing descriptions. It takes me back to one of the greatest experiences of my life (no kidding): as a year 8 student, sitting in the Kaitpo forest in SA, writing poetry! I am drawing from vague experiences to write about things. Describing gardens has been something I’ve been obsessed with over the past few days, and one of my characters has such a beautiful garden! I hope I can paint it as beautifully in words. There is also a mystical forest in my story; I guess I am using the experience of our own Fangorn Forest to write about that.

Dialogue is something I do not always enjoy reading. I was taught that only 10% of your fiction should contain dialogue. I think that might ring true for many genres, but not all. The exercise of NaNo has taught me a bit about dialogue. 1) it makes the word count rise high, quickly, for some reason – maybe I type faster during times when my characters are conversing because I want to see what they will say and 2) it really is about showing, not telling, and if I want to prove something about an event or character, people need to talk about it. That’s what people do. We do not go through life in utter silence (but hey, sometimes that would be very nice!). Moreover, to make something, like an event, more interesting and realistic, the characters need to talk and relate to one another. Fact.

So, I am tapping away on my laptop, with terrible posture, trying to reach the 50,000 mark. And now that I am publishing about it, I think I will have to try harder, even though at 50,000 words, my main story will be far from complete…

When I found this number on finishing writing one day last week, I had to take a photo :)