One month to go

ONE MONTH TO GO TILL THE PUBLICATION OF TORN?! How the heck did that happen? Blimey. If you feel like pre-ordering a copy, you can do so here.


Guess what? I've given up on NaNoWriMo! I hit 34,000 words ahead of schedule, realized my story was very nearly finished and was not going to reach 50,000 and decided there were several other, more important things that I should really be spending the last few days of November doing. There's a possible-not-definite-very-exciting project on the horizon that has got me all kinds of distracted.


Writing 34,000 words in 18 days has taught me some things:


1. I could write a whole novel really quickly if I really, really wanted to.
2. I could not write a good novel really quickly no matter how much I really, really wanted to.
3. It's fun writing something just for myself. Creative freedom FTW.
4. Eating cornflakes for nearly every meal gets old after approximately 18 days.
5. Lots of writing = disgustingly messy house.


So what have you learned this month? Any startling revelations?

NaNoWriMo ToMoRrow

Eek. Erk. Gah. Remind me why I'm doing this? And remind me why I had to go and get all inspired this weekend, which resulted in me coming up with a brand new and definitely crazy idea?

The new idea involves girls and boys and Halloween and *coughs* stuff that I'll probably never be able to tell you about. This project is purely for fun. I don't think I'll let anyone read it... ever. I am crazy excited about writing something just for me. Hopefully this will give me the freedom to truly embrace the NaNoWriMo spirit, since I'm still slogging away at the WIP with the impending deadline.

I've never tried writing two things at once before. Have you? I hope I don't end up getting confused. That would be,,, not good.

Here's a song for you. Is it a clue about my NaNo project or is it a red herring? WHO CAN SAY?

Happy NaNoing to all you crazy people out there. As for the rest of you, good luck getting through the month without wanting to do violence to us annoying NaNoers.

NaNoWriMo

Well I've only gone and signed up for NaNoWriMo, haven't I? How the heck did that happen? 50,000 words to write in the month of November? Easy peasy. Um... yeah.


I blame Twitter. People were talking about NaNo. I felt left out. I joined in. Simple. Trouble is, I have a pesky deadline looming. So I can't just start a shiny new project on November 1st and sack off the WIP (much as I'd like to... shhh... don't tell anyone). So here's the plan:


1. Write some words on the WIP every day. Try not to rush it and make it rubbish.
2. Write some words on SOMETHING ELSE every day. Rush it and try not to care if it's rubbish.
3. End up with 50,000 words by the end of November. The word count will be WIP words and SOMETHING ELSE words combined.


(N.B. SOMETHING ELSE will probably not be YA... Oooh!)


Now, NaNo experts among you will know that this is what's known as 'cheating'. Lucky for me, in NaNo world, 'cheating' is more commonly known as 'rebelling'. Yup, I will be a NaNo rebel (along with a few of my Twitter friends who introduced me to the concept). There's even a forum for us rebels... and that makes it official, like.


Somehow I've already managed to convince two friends to join me in this madness. Any chance I can convince you too? Or are you already signed up? Or would your rather lop off your left arm, nibble off all the flesh and then use the bones to bash yourself over the head?


NaNo? YesNo? Or HellNo?

The finest two words in the English language

THE END. I typed those six letters about twenty minutes ago. My heart was thumping and I thought I was going to throw up.

Really mixed feelings about finishing this novel, for reasons I won't go into right now. Suffice to say I doubt I'll ever have to write anything else in such adverse conditions.

For now, I am eating celebratory wasabi peas and thinking about what to write next.

NaFiNoWriMo has been a success. Thanks to all you proper NaNoers out there for spurring me on.

NaFiNoWriMo update

Greetings. NaFiNoWriMo (National Finish Writing Novel Month) is progressing well. But I keep reading about amazing NaNoers who've written 25,000 words in a week. I bow down to their awesomeness. My progress has been much more modest, but at least there has been progress, which is more than I can say for the previous few months.

I'm on course to finish the first draft by the end of the month. In fact, I only have four or five major scenes to write, but they're biggies. I've done something entirely out of character and PLANNED them. Next to my desk is a big sheet of paper with character names and bullet points and headings like 'Things to add in' and 'Things to check' and 'The end'. I even used coloured pens. Fun times indeed. I'd love to post a picture for you, but then you'd know all the sekrits, and we can't be having that, can we?

In other non-news, I've started watching The Walking Dead. Anyone else watching?

Anyone got any NaNo progress to report?

NaFiNoWriMo

Yes, that's right. Not NaNoWriMo. NaFiNoWriMo is where I'll be at in November. For those who don't know, National Novel Writing Month is when a bunch of crazy dedicated people knuckle down for the month of November and write a WHOLE novel (50,000 words or more) in thirty days. Impressive, no?

This is the first year that I've really, really wanted to join in. And I can't. And that makes me frowny. The reason I can't participate is The Deadline (January), and my self-imposed first draft deadline, which happens to coincide with the end of NaNoWriMo. So I will be immersed in National Finish Novel Writing Month. Not quite so exciting, but hopefully the sense of achievement will still be there. After all, it's not every day you finish writing a novel. Unless you write really, really short novels.

So I'd like to wish everyone who's brave enough to NaNo HUGE amounts of good luck. As for those of you who aren't crazy brave, you should probably come up with a crappy fake challenge like mine so you don't feel too left out for the month of November.