I’ve been hearing about National Novel Writing Month for years. Actually, for the first couple of years, I heard about NaNoWriMo and thought it sounded like a store at the mall that sells kid’s shoes and mime make-up. But then I heard what it actually is – a website that brings writers together to face a simple but diabolical challenge – write a 50,000-word novel in exactly one month. Every year, I’ve always either been slap in the middle of a project or just finishing up a project or just plain chicken. But this year, the last week in October, an idea occurred to me for a vampire novel. I’ve been wanting to get back to vamps, and I liked this kernel of a story a lot. But I didn’t want to commit my usual nine months to a year to it – I have too much other stuff in the pipeline. But if I could just write it, just get it out there, just get it done in a month . . . .
So I’m trying. Today was my first day, and it’s gone well – I made it to my 2000 word goal. I have friends who write 2000 words over breakfast, but for me, this is a big deal – usually I’m lucky if I get a thousand in a day. Best of all, they feel like 2000 really GOOD words. I love my opening; I love my characters; I love this story so far.
So wish me luck. I won’t be blogging about this too much; reading about somebody else’s writing process can be dull as dishwater, particularly in a first draft. But if anybody else is taking up the challenge this year, look me up – I’m Lucy Blue-Castle on the NaNoWriMo site. We can do it, right?
Lucy Blue Writes 