NaNo update

It’s four days into the National Novel Writing Month, a challenge to write 50,000 words of a new novel in November. There are no prizes except the satisfaction of completing the task. I first did it two years ago and really got in the groove and easily passed the target; last year was a little more up to the wire, but I did it. This year…

This year I had no clear idea what I was going to do and hoped that inspiration would strike on November 1st… well, it didn’t. I had an idea about a group of women and it’s not clear exactly which of them is the narrator, and maybe there is more than one narrator; one of them becomes obsessed with someone who works in the local museum… It sounds contrived, and as I began to write it, yes, it definitely seemed contrived, stiff and awkward…

Not content with it, but determined to press on to see if it got into a flow, I actually started another story as well – two stories, twice as much chance to reach the target. This one is about a woman who had a major fall-out with her family over an undisclosed issue (undisclosed until much later) and who comes back to the family home for a funeral… I’d had this idea some time ago and I’m not sure exactly where it’s going…

Then,  maybe foolishly, there is a third story which has somehow bubbled up… continuing my genealogical mysteries, this time about an accident from long ago… or was it… maybe it was an accident or something more sinister…

Twenty-five days to go… and I wonder what I’ll have achieved at the end of it!