Well, I've actually done it! 50,000 words of my novel written in just one month. Okay, it's very rough, but it's a start. A skeleton to flesh out. There are characters and scenes to insert, some plot holes to fill, some very dodgy dialogue to sort out. But I've enjoyed every minute; even the odd moments when characters pop up that you weren't expecting, and your heroine starts doing things that she shouldn't. It's a great experience - the freedom to write without your inner critic demolishing...
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If you haven't come across NaNoWriMo yet, you're missing a great thing. NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month - is an American event rapidly going global. It's a creative writing challenge - to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Yes, one month! The trick is it doesn't have to be any good. It just has to hit the word count.
The aim is to get people writing without worrying. There isn't time for the tyranny of the self-critic. You have to type and go. Every day. For an average of 1670...
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Well, over the Christmas hols I did manage to do some writing after all! I've redrafted Chapter One of Henbane Hearth, as something really was off-key with it. I realised that my narrative voice wasn't working, so I've moved to third-person rather than first-person narration, and edited lots of the background fluff, so it's tighter. It has the benefit that I can get more into the heads of other characters rather than seeing everything from Tan's (the heroine's) POV, so hopefully won't get too...
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