Camp NaNoWriMo – Day One

It’s been a month or so since I updated my blog. It felt like a good time to go for it as I have been bitten once more by the writing bug.

For April 2021, I will be attempting something stupid, a 90,000 word first draft of a novel that I am currently calling Death By Chocolate. It’s based on the Nazi plan (recently uncovered) to kill Winston Churchill by planting an explosive device inside a bar of chocolate. Apparently the old dog had a sweet tooth.
While there are elements of historical fact in there, the story itself is fictional and follows the unlikely pairing of a Belgian chocolatier brought in to design the chocolate and a young Jewish girl on the run who is mistaken for his assistant and forced into the Wolf’s Lair (that’s what Hitler completely unironically called his base). It’s a dark comedy in the same realm as my previous historical fiction piece, The Counterfeiter of Auschwitz.
I’ve come to realise that this period of history interests me massively and there remain a wealth of stories from that time that are still being uncovered and I am delighted to research and write them.

I hope one day to be able to share it but for now, that’s all you’re getting. I’ll update as often as I can on where I’ve got to in the writing process.
Today I’m calling it at 2,280 words. It’s been a long day and I spent upwards of nine hours staring at a screen for work so the thought of doing anything else was already a lot. Either way, it’s a good start and I hope to get ahead of my planned 3,000 words a day this weekend to get this draft done by the end of April. It’s a lofty ambition but if there’s anyone stupid enough to give it a go then it’s me.