A lesson learned!

I think I have to admit that I am not going to reach the 50,000 word target of the National Novel Writing Month this year; it was unrealistic of me to even enter it and that is a lesson learned!

However, it has not been a failure, and I actually think that may be part of the whole point of it. It hasn’t been a failure because:

• I have started writing something new and different which I have been thinking in a wobbly way about for some time
• it has given me a focus and a structure to write about my history and my family history
• it has given me a way to draw the different strands of these very different stories together, and I hope, if it isn’t too pretentious, that the title and main theme – ‘And The River…’ and the theme of rivers, reflect the stories and the way they flow in and out, divert, deviate, find new courses – and reflect the way life happens!
• co-incidentally, by researching various things, I have ideas for other stories – particularly the skating accident story (a real tragedy from 1903 when someone fell through the ice while skating on a frozen river) but also the mysterious death of a school teacher – probably or possibly at the hands of a young deaf and dumb boy
• I have learned a very valuable and rather annoying lesson which I should have already known – there is only so much time to write, and writing too many different things at once mean none of them progress as they should, as they would if I did one thing at once – I am no good at juggling, I should know this!
• I won’t make my 50,000 words but I will have done a lot of valuable writing
• if/when I do this next year, I will clear the decks first and focus on the challenge!

So… I won’t reach the finishing line but I will have achieved!