It has not escaped my notice that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
The idea seems to be that writing a novel is one of those things that you always plan on doing but put off, for whatever reason, and never actually get round to, so the challenge is about setting a specific time to get on with it.
I think this is a great idea, but unfortunately will be in Australia for most of November, away from a convenient electronic writing tool (so computer-dependent am I, that I find it very hard to write anything of length without one these days…). However, I think the point of the exercise isn’t actually that you do this thing between a specific set of dates, the idea is more that you set yourself a limited time and just do it, not worrying about the quality or anything; you just have to write, and write lots.
So I think I’m going to try and do this – I’ll start in the middle of October and write up until I go away on holiday, and see what happens. I’ve already started thinking about what to write about, and I have an idea for a plot (sort of – it’s more of a theme really) and a couple of characters (not that it makes any difference, given that I’m breaking most of the rules of NaNoWriMo anyway by starting too early, but this kind of preparation is actually allowed under their rules).
I’m also contemplating publishing the work in progress as I go on this site, but I think I’ll have to see how it goes first.