My festive stay in Perthshire sans graphics tablet has been prolonged, so the comic isn’t finished. However, it’s a year to the day since I registered the 12 books in 12 months domain name, so it seems like a good time to reflect on how it’s gone.
With that in mind, American novelist Alison Walkley came across 12 books in November, and asked if there was a post explaining the plots of each book.
There is now.
Continue reading “End of Year Review: The Plots”
Like a trainee social worker or a graduate of philosophy, it is important for the NaNoWriMo participant to reflect on their experiences and achievements in order to get the full benefit from the experiment. So, what have I learned from churning out 50,310 of literary fiction over the past 29 days? (For the slower amongst you yes, this means I have now ‘finished’ the challenge for a second year).
Now to get ready for book 12 (which at this point in time is likely to be a series of one off webcomics, although we’ll see how I feel come Thursday…)
This weekend I started a journal documenting my last-ditch attempts to catch up with NaNo. This is how it went:
Saturday November 26, 13.40. I am sitting in our kitchen/living room listening to the hum of the washing machine and the wind outside. The enormous evergreen in the garden next door waves frantically at me and I wonder how much damage it would do if the wind was strong enough to knock it down – it’s as tall as this three story tenement building.
I should not be thinking about the tree, of course. I should be catching up on my NaNoWriMo story, which sits at 35, 962 words after a week of work, hanging around an industrial estate in Dundee, applications for funding and writing jobs, and last night an unexpected trip to everyone’s favourite grotty rock club in the cowgate. As I sat in this very same seat at 4am, scarfing down chunion crisps from the garage, my book was the last thing on my mind.
Time to Write or Die.
Continue reading “NaNoWriMo: Where Did It All Go Wrong”
I wrote this post last week and thought I’d scheduled it for Sunday, but apparently not. It’s still relevant, although the word count has changed a bit. It’s about NaNo in the context of having been writing books all year.
An extract from some email correspondence with my dear Marmee on the subject of NaNoWriMo last week:
Me, Edinburgh, Monday afternoon
I’ve passed 21k so should get to the 23.5 tonight I think, although I’m still not feeling very inspired so it’s basically all attempts to explore the characters to see who is worth hanging it off… At the moment I’m feeling it’s the least inspired thing I’ve done all year. But maybe when I come back to it I will see something there.
Marmee, Blairgowrie, Monday Evening
Maybe the whole thing of 12 in 12 means you are more matter of fact and less impressed by your own writing than you have been in the past? Most of us are struggling to get anything down, which I suspect is a barrier you have broken through.
Continue reading “NaNoWriMo – What Am I Doing?!”
Forsooth, tis November already, which means NaNoWriMo must be in full flow. An update, then, on my progress.
Thus far I have been writing every day and maintaining a pretty decent word count without actually knowing what I want the book to be. Although this makes my lovely stats page look pretty, overall I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not.
Many of my fellow Wrimos have been tweeting fairly consistently to detail their struggle to reach the daily word count, and I am beginning to find this a bit worrying.
Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2011: A Progress Report”
NaNoWriMo has begun and might look like a daunting task at present, so today I have a guest post to motivate you into thinking about what you might do after the 30 days are up. Scottish writer Lynsey May is in charge of Marketing and Events at the Edinburgh Review, and she’s also a freelance copywriter. Here she gives her tips on how to start out digitally.
Continue reading “How To Start Out Digitally”
12 Books in 12 Months 