I may be foolish, but…

I think I may be foolish, but once again I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo – the National Novel Writing Month in November.  The idea is that you set yourself a target of writing 50,000 words  in those thirty days – although I think it’s more flexible now and you can set your own target.

I had thought about taking up the challenge for several years before I first did it in 2013 when I began to write ‘Radwinter’. The challenge was an enormous spur, and I powered through, achieving far more than the target number of words per day. I was totally taken up by Thomas Radwinter’s story, and although I adjusted it later, the first draft was written as if he was writing it recounting the events which changed his life over a month. I had to readjust it because although the story started in November, the final chapters took place over Christmas. Come 2014, and I had another Thomas story ready to write – he was such a vivid character to me, the things which happened to him seemed almost real!

There is another NaNoWriMo event in April, and I used that to discipline me to write Radwinter 2, ‘Magick’ in April 2014. I can’t now remember why, but I completed two ‘Magick’ challenges. The first was about Thomas finding an old recipe book which belonged to some ancestor, and there were notes and jottings in it as well as newspaper and other cuttings which he used in his genealogical investigation. The second was similar, but it was a box of photos he found. The end product, my novel, ‘Magick’, was neither but skimmed some ideas from both!

I was very productive in 2014, because having written the two Magick books, I also wrote ‘Raddy and Syl’ as part of the NaNo November challenge. Things slowed down then – or maybe I slowed down, or maybe I was writing other things, more short stories for example. I used the challenge for the next in the series, the following year – ‘Earthquake’. The next time I rose to the challenge for a Radwinter book, was one of my favourites in the series, ‘Winterdyke’ which I wrote (and enjoyed writing) in 2018.

I hadn’t give up on NaNo in 2016, I tried (yet again) to write a biographical book – I completed the challenge, so I wrote 51,000+ words, but it didn’t really work, it was a struggle, and honestly, not at all what I wanted. I tried again in 2019, with ‘Who do you think I am?’ but faltered after a few days. Maybe I should go back to those pieces or maybe start again – or maybe not! 2017… well, I crept over the finish line with 50,470 words, the title was ‘Mila’, it was about a woman, but I don’t remember anything else from it! I also completed in 2020, but have absolutely no clue what I wrote – ‘Unknown Destination’? Too right!!

And the last three years? Four tries, and the last two were the book I have at last finished and am now editing ready to publish which I hope to do in the next month except I am beset by technical difficulties. I had the idea of calling it ‘Undertow’, or ‘Riptide’, and I think I’ve settled on ‘Spindrift’ – but really I’m not sure yet.

NaNo stats (published books in bold):

• 2013 Radwinter
• 2014 Cooking the Books
• 2014 Magick and the photo box
• 2014 Raddy and Syl
• 2015 Earthquake
• 2016 And the River
• 2017 Mila
• 2018 Winterdyke
• 2019 Who do you think I am?
• 2020 Unknown Destination
• 2021 Dangling
• 2022 The Angle of the Hart
• 2023 Undertow
• 2023 Riptide