It's July which, of course, means only one thing in my world: July Novel Writing Month, also known as JulNoWriMo. A spin off from November's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), JulNo sees intrepid or possibly foolhardy writers huddled over their laptops/PCs/bits of paper with frenzied looks in their eyes as they attempt to bash out fifty thousand words before the end of the month. Yes, that's what I said...fifty THOUSAND words. In a MONTH. Are we mad, I hear you ask; no, my good sir, we are WRITERS!!
Having got the NaNo and JulNo bugs a few years back, consequently this time of year sees me once again hunched over my laptop attempting to make sense of a plot that was vaguely conceived on a scrappy bit of paper in a pub one lunchtime, and cursing the writing gods for making me this way. Other people don't feel a burning need to write, I can be heard to scream semi-coherantly; so why did you curse me with this unfortunate affliction? To make things even worse, this year - for a variety of reasons - I started late and so I'm several thousand words behind. 12,684, to be precise. I'm also labouring with a story that I started two years ago and have been bullied into finishing (you know who you are...) Some days it flows like a dream; other days - like now - it's like wading through treacle: you get nowhere fast. I'm sure it would be easier to just write 50,000 words of utter garbage and not worry about it, but that kind of defeats the point in my mind; I want to have a very basic first draft of the story to give to people to read so that I can edit it and make it a coherant story. I did it twice before, how hard can it be? And why the hell am I scribbling this blog and googling complete rubbish when I have words to complete?
Right, I've done my entry for today, so back to the coalface of those 12,684 words still missing. Why can't my bloody characters just do as they're told; Stephanie Meyer made a killing churning out nauseating dialogue and having sterotypical one dimensional characters, so surely I can do the same for the sake of a few thousand words, right? Right?!
Umm, no, actually. I am certainly no Shakespeare but I have a little thing called self-respect. So: once more unto the breach, dear friends, for the writer is returning to her garret to bash out another few sentences. All this and I have my Writers Group performance tomorrow, which I am utterly stressing about. I'm a writer, therefore I sit in my garret and, well, write. Judi Dench I am not. Ah well, enough procrastinating and pathetic whining, I have words to attack! Forth Eorlingas!!!
Having got the NaNo and JulNo bugs a few years back, consequently this time of year sees me once again hunched over my laptop attempting to make sense of a plot that was vaguely conceived on a scrappy bit of paper in a pub one lunchtime, and cursing the writing gods for making me this way. Other people don't feel a burning need to write, I can be heard to scream semi-coherantly; so why did you curse me with this unfortunate affliction? To make things even worse, this year - for a variety of reasons - I started late and so I'm several thousand words behind. 12,684, to be precise. I'm also labouring with a story that I started two years ago and have been bullied into finishing (you know who you are...) Some days it flows like a dream; other days - like now - it's like wading through treacle: you get nowhere fast. I'm sure it would be easier to just write 50,000 words of utter garbage and not worry about it, but that kind of defeats the point in my mind; I want to have a very basic first draft of the story to give to people to read so that I can edit it and make it a coherant story. I did it twice before, how hard can it be? And why the hell am I scribbling this blog and googling complete rubbish when I have words to complete?
Right, I've done my entry for today, so back to the coalface of those 12,684 words still missing. Why can't my bloody characters just do as they're told; Stephanie Meyer made a killing churning out nauseating dialogue and having sterotypical one dimensional characters, so surely I can do the same for the sake of a few thousand words, right? Right?!
Umm, no, actually. I am certainly no Shakespeare but I have a little thing called self-respect. So: once more unto the breach, dear friends, for the writer is returning to her garret to bash out another few sentences. All this and I have my Writers Group performance tomorrow, which I am utterly stressing about. I'm a writer, therefore I sit in my garret and, well, write. Judi Dench I am not. Ah well, enough procrastinating and pathetic whining, I have words to attack! Forth Eorlingas!!!
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