Rediscovering the 'Me' in 'Mumeeeeeee'

'I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife’s badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways'. (Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861)

November 1, 2010

50,000 words!


Yep, 50,000 words. A lot of words. The number of words me and thousands of other writers are aiming to write before the end of this month. Why? Simply because November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as it is know to its friends. The idea of this initiative is to get procrastinating wannabe novelists and writers, such as me, to JUST WRITE. Hammer it all out, get it down on paper/screen and go back to it in December to faff about with the commas and the apostrophes and to correct the terrible sentence formation and shockingly bad dialogue.

I am more than slightly daunted by the prospect, given that I usually don't have time in the day to write a decent tweet, let alone 1,667 words of, what will hopefully become, a bestseller. But people do all sorts of mad things in their lives don't they, like climbing mountains and throwing themselves off very tall buildings and I know writing 50,000 words isn't quite up there with the base-jumping adrenalin junkies, but it's my challenge.

So while others grow fabulous moustaches for the month of MOvember, and start their Christmas shopping and watch the final week of Masterchef the Professionals, I'll be here, tapping away, tapping away, tapping away......

Some other bloggers I am aware of who are also taking up the challenge are Slummy Single Mummy, Musings on a Life Quite Ordinary, Deer Baby and an excellent writer Alison at Head Above Water who wrote this great post about the whole idea of National Novel Writing Month - and how to get through it! The best of luck to them and if you're also participating, leave me a comment below.

I will, of course, keep you posted on my progress and solemnly promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about exactly how many words I managed at the end of the month.

Wish me luck!

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5 comments:

  1. Good luck! I've done NaNo for the past three years and managed 50,005 words or thereabouts each time (I like to cut it fine). My family has begged me not to do it this year - it rather takes over - and I'm missing it already. Of course I could always do it in secret...

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  2. I'm full of admiration... but being behind on a book deadline of my own having signed a contract promising to have the MS done by the end of November, there's no way I could consider it. Is there?

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  3. Best of luck! I'm doing it too. I think the secret is little and often!

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  4. Argh onto day 6 and already feeling the strain. Bit like a diet, first couple of days are easy and you wander round thinking this is going to be a piece of cake - and then reality and in the case of diet, all those pieces of cake hit. However am determined to now get stuck in for today, after all 2,000 words of rubbish better than no words of rubbish! Good Luck

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  5. oh no. I knew nothing about this and we are half way through the month already. I've been busy blogging instead - it's so much less demanding - or would be if I'd just followed a template instead of trying to design my own site!
    I am going to have to wean myself off checking my cluster map to see where in the world people are reading me and get back to the book I stopped when Summer holidays with the kids took over my life!
    Still if you need a break please do visit my blog - notanottinghillmum.co.uk and make little red dots appear on my map! And hot cross mum if you want to link to me I'd be very happy to link to you - outside my new novel-writing timetable of course.
    Thanks for the tip and good luck to everyone taking part
    Jane A x

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