Oh dear

It’s been a while…  I haven’t had internet at home (I’m looking at you, Virgin Media) and I’ve been busy at work, but I’m squeezing this post in on a Friday lunchtime to let you all know that:

1. I am behind on nano.  This is not a surprise.  The surprise is that I stayed on track for a whole week.  Still, if I double my word count by Sunday, I can have 25,000 words and be back in the game.  I’m pleased with what I’ve been writing, though, so I’m considering the endeavour a success.

2. I’ve just finished reading American Gods.  Fantastic.  Huger in scope than Anansi Boys,  so I felt a more distanced from the characters, but just epic and brilliant.

3. Genuine excitement – I’ve just remembered that I have the manuscript for the new David Mitchell novel in my desk drawer.  I thought that I had nothing to read on the tube home, but now I do!

1,904 words!

After my grump of this morning, I’ve decided that the number of siblings that Mucha had doesn’t matter for now.  What matters is that I get this writing malarky on the road – which I have.  1,904 words before tea time.  I could have written more, but now I’ve had some victory beer.  Day one and I’m over the necessary word count to be on track.  This will all change tomorrow, of course, as I can’t see me writing 1,667 words after a day’s ‘proper’ work, but for now I’m smug.

Research fail

Instead of opening my blank word document nice and early this morning and getting that word count underway, I’ve spent the past hour and a half trying to find out if Alfons Mucha had any siblings.  The internet is a stupid face!

T minus one day to…

NANOWRIMO!  This year, as with last year and the year before, I shall be nanowrimoing.  The challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November.  Now, I am a slow writer.  I write a few lines.  I stare at those lines for a while.  I delete those lines.  I re-write them slightly differently.  This means that I am generally quite happy with my work as it progresses, but that I have no hope of writing 50,000 words in 30 days, while I also have a full-time job and a social life.  I am not, however, deterred.  I like to see nano as a framework, an impetus to write.  I can track my progress on my page, see how my writing buddies are doing, trawl the forums for advice.  For some people, nano is a sprint to the end – 50,000 words, 30 days, be damned with editing – but for me, it’s more of a hike; I stop and take in the scenery, consider carefully which path to take.  So, I’ll be (very pleasantly) suprised if I have 50,000 words of this novel on 30th November, but I will definitely have a good chunk – hopefully, a good chunk of novel that I don’t want to hide away in a drawer for shame.