National Novel Writing Month - A good excuse

I always said would never do it, but I have to admit I have succumbed to the National Novel Writing Month (nicknamed Nano). For one month only I am expected to shove all other commitments to the edge of the desk (if I can find it)and write, write, write. The reason I decided to do this was to give myself a break from editing my second novel, The Incomers.

The Mongrel, a short story I wrote about two years ago has been gnawing at my bones. It always was a novel, but being a fantasy story I could never see myself writing it. I reckoned if I could do it in a month then I could purge it from my system once and for all.

I thought the process would be tedious and distracting. It's not. I am hooked.

The website that monitors the project, www.nanowrimo.org/ lays on advice and offers facilities for writing buddies to give encouragement, but I am not into that. Writers are also expected to log their word count as they go on. By the end of November the total words logged should be 50,000. So far I have logged 7500, but these are only the words I have managed to type. I have written many more.

The process I use is to write every morning, at least 6 A5 pages; no editing, no reading back. The plan is to type them up when I have time, but unfortunately I am not good at ditching my other commitments and have lagged behind with the typing. Does it matter? I reckon I have about another 15,000 words hand written in a notebook, which is incredible; I have never written so much in such a short time before. And the story is so alive in my head, I think I might use this method for first draft from now on. This is the third week and I know I will stick in and work with my own wee process. Maybe by the end of next week I will be done with the story.