Taking on NaNoWriMo... Again
After promising years ago never to do NaNoWriMo again, I’m now planning on taking part again, starting in a week’s time. (I can see you rolling your eyes in the back of the room millionreasons.)
I have a novel I’ve been writing off and on for 10 years - a novel I started with NaNoWriMo then abandoned, only to pick it up again in 2015 when I returned to London after my year off in Brazil (when my mom first got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.)
I ended up living in a narrowboat in 2018 as part of my research for this novel, but work on it continued to be very scattered, when I felt like it. Finally, thanks to the pandemic, I buckled down and was able to focus every morning (between 7am and 9am) on it. I now have plenty of material and a good roadmap. I’m going to use NaNoWriMo to generate a skeletal structure I can work from and finally put together a first draft.
Quite a few friends - some who are successful published authors - have offered to look at the novel and “future revise” it, i.e. look with an eye keener on what the novel promises then on where it fails. This has been hugely encouraging; it makes me feel as if I have a supportive choir willing to guide me to the story’s best possible version. It also helps that I have all the patience and time in the world, and that I’m still interested in my story.
In this photo, I’m sitting in my bed with Paçoca on my lap, reading the final chapters of Barging Round Britain, which I read as part of research.
I have a novel I’ve been writing off and on for 10 years - a novel I started with NaNoWriMo then abandoned, only to pick it up again in 2015 when I returned to London after my year off in Brazil (when my mom first got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.)
I ended up living in a narrowboat in 2018 as part of my research for this novel, but work on it continued to be very scattered, when I felt like it. Finally, thanks to the pandemic, I buckled down and was able to focus every morning (between 7am and 9am) on it. I now have plenty of material and a good roadmap. I’m going to use NaNoWriMo to generate a skeletal structure I can work from and finally put together a first draft.
Quite a few friends - some who are successful published authors - have offered to look at the novel and “future revise” it, i.e. look with an eye keener on what the novel promises then on where it fails. This has been hugely encouraging; it makes me feel as if I have a supportive choir willing to guide me to the story’s best possible version. It also helps that I have all the patience and time in the world, and that I’m still interested in my story.
In this photo, I’m sitting in my bed with Paçoca on my lap, reading the final chapters of Barging Round Britain, which I read as part of research.