I’m still catching my breath. It’s been a month of mad scribbling.
November was National Novel Writing Month and it’s been a goal of mine to do it ever since someone threw the acronym at me years ago.
Writing 50,000 words in only 30 days sounded insane. It’s at least 1,666 words a day to stay on target.
I wrote a staggering (for me) 43,227 words. That’s a first draft of a new novel I didn’t have in October.
Ask my family – I was insane! I spoke in monosyllables at home, wrote at the dinner table, at the hairdressers, in my lunch break, in the car, watching swimming classes. Anywhere I could.
I’d chosen to handwrite my way to the end goal. A migraine friendly compromise – definitely recommend!
There were a few days where a migraine struck and the words evaporated. Word count zero.
And there were a few amazing days where the words poured out and I wrote close to 3,000 words.
One of those days was the train ride to Katoomba. Thirty-four NaNoWriMers met at Central Station, took over a carriage and we did writing sprints all the way to the Blue Mountains. It was loud-quiet-intense. Once in the mountains we dispersed for a few hours to wander around, write in the library, café’s, pubs and parks, then we climbed back on the train again to write our way back to Sydney.
Go November! What an experience.