It’s that pesky time of year where we ahem, enjoy NaNoWriMo. For those of you who are not sure what it is, its some crazy (quite obviously alcohol fuelled) idea that everyone sits down every day for the entire month of November and writes. Furthermore, we are challenged to write 50,000 in the month.
NaNoWriMo, the somewhat alien-speak acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month.
It works out at 1,666 words a day. Which roughly is five word-processed A4 pages.
That’s if you start on November 1st.
I didn’t.
I read an excellent piece yesterday from the Yorkshire (a small northern ‘state’ in the UK for the American readers out there) NaNoWriMo group that said if I started yesterday it was still only 2,500 words per day.
Unfortunately, I didn’t start yesterday. Or today.
So now, it works out at 2,777 words per day. If I start today. Which I won’t.
I am of course going to have a go, but I like a challenge. So I’m starting on 25th November. It’s only 10,000 words a day. 28 pages. Easy.
In the meantime, to get yourself through NaNoWriMo and feel you can’t write, read instead! Have a go at these beauties. They truly are excellent:
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Meticulously researched and expertly written. It reads like a novel, yet sadly is harrowingly true. Absolutely superb book. Highly recommended.
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry
Echoing the above comments, this again is superbly written and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch
Awful, distasteful characters superbly crafted and developed by this excellent author. The story weaves and twists and ultimately this novel is unputdownable. Wish I had written it. As eBay would say “Buy it now”.