Camp NaNoWriMo 2016 – week 1

As ever I’ve driven myself to distraction with my writing. It’s day ten today and I’ve already hit 20,000 words. What makes this year and this Camp different is that I have not lived the experiences I am writing about.

For the last three years I have used November to write my travel journals from the annual charity treks I do. That’s where Yallah came from and in time the Peru book and Grand Canyon book should follow. I’ve taken a different tact and decided to write a sci-fi having undertaken very little research and with little planning – it’s very much a flying by the seat of my pants job. The cool thing is that it seems to be working. My friend Lottie called me out for always writing subservient female characters so I’ve not only written two powerful female leads but also have not boasted about the size of their tits once. Now that’s progress ladies.

I’m enjoying this project and, as ever, it is interesting to see where my mind sends me off to. There are so many different ways it can go and I don’t yet have an ending but I have an interesting arc, good characters, and shit is about to go down.

Love you.