NaNoWriMo….all alone, and an exercise in pantsing?

Last year, I discovered this thing called National Novel Writing Month (or, NaNoWriMo as it’s known). Typical. By the time I’d found out about these 30 days and nights of “literary abandon” it was already halfway through November and I’d missed out. I swore to myself that I’d do it this year. And so I am, God help me.

This isn’t just insane…this is “i’m not going to sleep and nobody is going to eat and the house is going to go to wrack and ruin” insane. To write 50,000 words in a month…yep, definite madness. I’m now not quite so sure I can pull this off. I’m so tired all the time that all I really want to do when I finish work is sleep, not write 1666 words.

My own daughter, who is a fantastic writer, said a few months back, “Yeah mom, I’ll do that with you! It’ll be fun!” is now saying “I never said I’d do it and I’m not doing it, I don’t have time!” Hmph. She has plenty of time for facebook and playing on her phone though. I’m actually quite peeved. And feeling rather abandoned and alone. She thinks it’s hilarious. I however seem to have lost my sense of humour. Oh well, maybe next year she’ll feel more up to the challenge. Who knows? I do still love her though and have forgiven her for abandoning me in my hour of need. Sort of 🙂

Despite being dumped so unceremoniously, my biggest issue is that so far, I have absolutely NO idea of what i’ll be writing about. Awesome, 50,000 words of….what?  It’ll probably be YA type stuff, probably with at least one or two vampires thrown in for good measure. I do love my vampires, they’re so much fun to write.  I also like to read about them, so this sorta makes sense, right?  Throw in a dose of teenage rage, angst and turmoil…and there’s a book I want to read. Quite possibly one I’d like to write. Yeah yeah I know. It’s been done, I understand that. However, it hasn’t been done by me. That makes it different, or at least that’s my defence and I’m sticking to it.

Now that I have some sort of random idea, I’m onto my next dilemma: Plan or pants it? I’m usually a meticulous planner. Everything gets thought out, listed, reworked, reframed, and reorganised to within an inch of it’s life (Lightbulb moment! THAT’S why I get so damn miserable halfway through the planning stage! I must bear that in mind from now on!). For NaNo though…not one word has been put on paper, not a list, nor an outline. Big fat nothing. Could this be the way I get through it? By NOT planning so much my head wants to explode? Maybe just having a slight inkling of what I want to do will be enough. I’ve really secretly always wanted to try pantsing it to see what happens. This is the perfect opportunity.

I’ll keep you posted as I go along. Wish me luck! If you’re doing NaNo this year, let me know!

Love and Peace,

Jacqui

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