NaNoWriMo 19

It’s 18^th November, 2019. I have finished the first draft of my National Novel Writing Month project. It’s been an interesting two and a half weeks where I’ve had to carry my laptop with me at all times, desperately squirreling away when I get some time to myself to work. This was the first time that I had worked using Dan Harmon’s Story Circles and I found it such a useful tool to get to grips with what my protagonist wanted.

 This in conjunction with my ability to put the blinkers on and focus on the sole task of making word count for the day. The fact that I’ve managed to write 55,000 words (exactly) in eighteen days means that I was going above the daily wordcount of 1,667 substantially. The rebooted website (which is not without its bugs) says that I’ve averaged 3,055 words a day.

Knowing that I can’t look at the words I have written for at least a month, and not having anything better to do with my time, I think it’s important to tell you all that I have immediately started on another project. In October I posted a poll to social media with three different ideas for stories. The detective story I have just finished was the winner by a nose, so I think it’s only fair I write up the second idea – a coming of age story told through a series of letters to a cultural icon. I’ve always been interested in the nature of teenagerhood, and the awkwardness that comes across children as they bloom into the people that they are due to become. As ever, it’s an opportunity for me to process a lot of things that I went through at that time and to try and understand how it made me who I am.

I can’t promise that I’ll get another 50k done, but my god I’m willing to try.