Whilst I have always wanted to write, I never thought I was any good but, in November 2012, I was ‘dared’ by my son to try something called Nanowrimo or National Novel Writing Month where the aim was to write a 50,000+ novel during the month of November.
What a challenge that was! 1,667 words per day, every day, for an entire month! Could I do it? I didn’t think so but, not someone who can resist a reasonable dare, I tried anyway. And what a revelation it was – I did it! over 50,000 words written and, not only that, the people I showed it to seemed to like it. It was very rough with loads of typos and spelling mistakes but I had a story.
The following year was spent working on what I’d written – correcting it, tweaking it, writing new bits, taking out bits which didn’t work so well and by October 2013 it was up to over 67,000 words but still not properly finished. Then I was dared to do it again for the 2013 Nanowrimo. And I did! By the end of November I had again reached the required 50,000 words and produced around two thirds of another story. Its still not finished but its growing.
But there’s more. The best bit about Nanowrimo 2013 was meeting other ‘Nanoists’ in the local area and making friends. We all started by meeting up each week during Nano month and chatting about what we were writing, how we were getting on and typing furiously as we worked on our novels. At the end of November not only had we all completed the challenge, we had all become friends and wanted more. So we kept on meeting. every fortnight, on a Wednesday evening to share our work and to talk about our writing. We started by reading each other’s 2012 and 2013 novels but then we all decided to we needed to keep on writing and work on something new. We started by generating a random sentence from the internet and attempting to write a 1,500 to 2,000 word story before the next meeting. What fun! We are now all developing portfolios of short stories.
This blog is where I’m going to publish my stories so the rest of the world can see them. Here are my first attempts – I hope you like them! Any comments about what you think will be appreciated, it can only help me to get better.
And then there are my political views. I also write long-winded rants on the state of he nation and the difficulties disabled people have in the current political climate.
I am not asking anyone to agree with me but read what I’m saying, think about it and then comment constructively. I look forward to hearing your views too….
Poppy's Place 