fabergemonkey

I have listed below the NaNoWriMo posts that I wrote:

Week 1

Tell someone you are going to write a novel and they will be immediately interested and, usually, quite impressed. Tell them that you are going to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in the month of November and their response is a little more circumspect. Raised eyebrows may be involved.

“So, what is #nanowrimo” I asked one of my Twitter friends. “Look it up and I dare you to join” she answered.

So I did, and I was immediately hooked. The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has been going for over a decade and has over 100,000 participants, each of whom is striving to fulfil one simple objective.

A fifty thousand word novel. In the month of November. That is it.

Intriguing.

Reading further I began to experience the full potential of this very simple idea. I began to buy into the philosophy, the basis of which is another simple concept; write. That is all you have to do. Write and write and write.

Fifty thousand words in thirty days. That is 1,667 words a day.

Intimidating.

On November 1st I was up at 5am. I had a vat of coffee on the go. I had music and I had peace and quiet. I had an idea. I had a story, or the half-baked, vaguely thought through glimmerings of one. I had characters. I had the opportunity and the goal. I began to write.

One week in and I am tired. Work has played hell, but the constant effort of imagining and writing has taken a toll as well, no matter how liberating the experience has been. My characters are doing unexpected things. Others have come in to being, and a minor character from another creative effort is suddenly here and playing a major part. Why? Because the monkey just would not fit. Please, do not ask.

Molly, poor Molly, is in dire straits; she has had bad news in the family, a very strange man is following her and in another scene she cowers in a tree in a twilight world whilst something awful hunts her. The boy has begun his search and we are witness to the slow unravelling of a mysterious someone’s mind.

And this is the crux of it; I cannot wait until tomorrow, until all the tomorrows leading up to the 30th of November. I cannot wait to find out how this will end, how my characters will do. Will they win the day or will they die trying? Only I can tell.

Week 2

Week Two of the NaNoWriMo[http://www.nanowrimo.org] challenge has been about many things.

It has been about the grind; dragging each word into place, setting it down and turning back for the next one, forming sentences and paragraphs and scenes.

It has been about the characters; each springing into place, sometimes fully formed and vibrant, at other times the mere shell of potential, glittering and within reach.

Yet most of all it has been about realisation.

The realisation that 50,000 words is inadequate to this task, that even though I am 20,200 words in, I have barely begun to tell the story that is taking shape. Its complexity and its breadth is beginning to crystallise. It staggers and scares me. It is all the stories and half-stories in my head and in my heart, an intertwining of many lives and many influences, giving rise to something I am beginning to love.

There is the realisation that my process is different from that of many others. That try as I might I cannot simply throw words down on paper, the writer in me is still choosing them carefully, weighing each one for effect, balance and rhythm. I realise that I cannot write this from A to Z, but organically grow each scene and its intertwining, slotting them into the space that is my story.

There is the realisation that my characters will not necessarily comply to my demands. My initial ‘bad guy’ was too small, too derivative, too human to be the main protagonist. Instead he has assumed the role as the brutal, amoral force of pragmatism, unknowingly stepping the line between what is right and what is wrong.

To borrow from Maureen Johnson’s excellent pep talk [http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3447232], I am still near the coast of this tale, heading inwards to that vast, intimidating interior, the far side a distant prize. Along the way I shall write, imagine and struggle. And I shall surpass the 50,000 words, celebrating with all my fellow NaNoers as they do so too.

The story so far: Molly is torn from her world, hunted and alone; her father offered an impossible choice, sacrifice the price to his every answer. Sidaka begins his journey towards an eventual and unknown doom, the boy his charge and ward. Anh and Vex take their first steps on the path to a world plunged into blood and chaos. And somewhere in the depths of my imagination, evil stirs and takes shape, ready to stalk forth into an unsuspecting world.

Week 3

It is the end of week 3 of the NaNoWriMo challenge and I am still sticking with it. After a week interrupted by work and excessive tiredness I had found myself several thousand words behind the daily target and stressed because of it.

And then I discovered the NaNoWordSprints, where one of the challenge hosts would call a 10, 15, 20, 30 (usually) or 45 minute writing ‘sprint’, the participants having to write as much and as quickly as possible; reporting back on the number of words written, plus any asked for fact or extract from their efforts. Before I knew it I was knocking off large blocks from my deficit.
Now I am back on track and eager to press on.

The thing that has struck me most about this challenge has been the camaraderie; from fellow nanoers, from the team leading the challenge, and from the authors who deliver the weekly pep talks. On Twitter I seem to fallen in with a diverse band of writers, each of us taking it in turns to cheer the others on; encouraging, commiserating, congratulating, and celebrating at each milestone, at each moment of joy.

And there is joy, whenever you hit a moment of doubt and overcome it, when each thousandth word is completed, when the 25,000 and then 35,000 milestones are passed. The joy is tangible and sometimes overwhelming, with all that graft paying off. There are those who have breezed to 50,000 words, the stories tumbling from them effortlessly, and yet they still stand by and cheer the rest of us on, willing us to reach that common goal.

This is a theme I see time and time again on the forums, from every nanoer throughout each and every day. There are the write-ins, where writers gather to write and talk and write some more, often with the reward of coffee, tea, cake and cheesy chips to hand.

Week three has definitely highlighted this camaraderie of the community of writers. I have met wonderful people and learnt tremendous amounts, and it is with their help that I carry on.

The story so far; Molly is makes a potentially fatal mistake. The captive seeks the haven of madness. War has broken out and blood flows, the first stirrings of the senseless devastation to come. In the greatest of cities the usurper prepares to kill the only true salvation he may have, evil stalking his every move.

Week 4

It is Monday 30th November and all across the world writers are struggling to reach the magical 50,000 word mark by the time midnight rolls around, local time. There is joy and determination and despair. This is the culmination of the NaNoWriMo challenge.

On Saturday I was up early, tired and not a little determined. I was going to do it today. Stubbornness, the NaNo word sprints and the support of other nanoers had gotten me to within 5,000 words of the target. By mid-morning, fueled by images of stoic-jawed fellow nanoers marching on to glory, I had reduced this by 1700 words. This was not going to be too hard.

And the day intervened. Chores and events and distractions stepped into my path, and when I restarted that evening I was suddenly struggling, dragging out word after reluctant word. By 3.30am GMT I was there; 50,048 shiny words proclaiming me a winner. And I felt like one. I was teary, I was happy, and I was somewhat bereft. Two days later I am suffering what Judy Clement Wall describes as a nano-hangover. I want to do it again, all of it.

Some facts and figures, as of today: 166,752 authors of which there are 23,143 winners, they have written 2,147,483,647 words and $587,039 has been raised for the writing programmes NaNoWriMo runs.

I had no real concept what 50,000 words looked like until I did this. I have no idea what 2 billion words looks like. There are so many authors out there, many of whom started and stopped, many of whom are still striving to reach their goal, and a small number of whom have finished ahead of time. There are teenagers and schoolchildren and mothers and fathers and writers and professionals and all of them are writing the stories in their heads and their hearts. This is the magic of the NaNoWriMo; this coming together of creativity, mutual respect, support and constant endeavour.

My story goes on; Molly has found her love, her father lies on the cusp of death. The boy becomes less himself every moment and war has broken out all over, in a world where ships sail the sky and angels are caught in time. And it is not yet done, I have thousands and thousands of words to go, and time enough to write them; and none of this would have even started without this challenge, without the support of friends, new and old, and without this happy, insane love of writing.