(Hashtag) NaNoWriMo

We had a few organisational issues. Neither of us were sure whose turn it was to post tonight. So, I shall do a short one for you and Vicky will do a proper one tomorrow! Okay? OKAY.

So, for the past month my life has been taken over by words. I dreamt about words. I worried about words. I counted words. I wrote SO MANY words. And all of this was in the name of NaNoWriMo. For those of you who aren't aware of NaNoWriMo, fear not! It is, quite simply, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you write 50,000 words (a novel) in a month (November) and you get the satisfaction of knowing that you've completed something significant in your life. Obviously, this isn't an easy thing to do. 1667 words a day may not sound like much, but that's over 3 sides of size 10 font on A4. This is especially difficult for those of us with lives outside word writage, but I was adamant that I would make it.

After enlisting Matt in to my scheme of Novel writing fun, we began to pick away at that 50k target. I hadn't planned. I hadn't thought of a plot. I kept forgetting my characters names (funny story: the bad guy started off by being called King Furvus. Ended up being Lord Farzana). I wasn't sure of anything. I'll admit, I spent quite a few days pondering over my story that lay in rags and wondering if it was even worth it. But after the first week I got in to the NaNoWriMo rhythm. I realised that I wasn't supposed to be writing a piece of art. In fact, it didn't matter if I rambled through my narration nonsensically. The whole idea was to accomplish a goal and gain self satisfaction, not write a publishable novel. And quite suddenly I was able to write 1000 words an hour because I wasn't too busy fretting over whether I'd got the characterisation right or if I'd described the setting in enough detail. It was, quite literally, quantity not quality.

I spent most of my free time typing away. When a computer wasn't available I wrote it down in a notebook that I carried everywhere. I was almost constantly behind schedule, right up until those last couple of days. It wasn't easy. On more than one occasion I switched the internet off so that it wouldn't distract me. I neglected my homework. My school folders were in a state of disarray. My room was a mess. And finally, the 30th ticked by and I wrote my fifty-thousandth word.

It might've taken over my life for 30 days straight and I might not have been particularly good company during those days, but I'm glad I did it.

At least I beat Matt, right?

Jasm x

P.S. If you were wondering, my 50,000th word was "impact".