NaNoWriMo and Distractions Galore

Edgar Allen Poe may have continued writing through joy, sorrow, hunger, thirst, sunshine and moonshine, but I know for sure he never had the distraction of deleting his entire iTunes library from a computer and then finding only half of it remained in the recycle bin. That was my big distraction on Sunday 11^th November. I guess I could just sync to the iPod, but I only ever listen to the music on my laptop, so haven’t bothered to update it for two years and don’t want to lose anything I’ve added in the meantime.

He's going be a new character in my novel.

Anyway, them’s my computer woes, and they came after going to a family birthday on Friday night, staying up late imbibing too much and not writing on Saturday. So a grand total of 942 words ended up being written over the weekend, putting me 2K behind, which I should be able to catch up on this week (crosses fingers).

My other big distraction is research. This NaNo novel is a sequel to my first Tudor novel, so I know most of my characters very well and, having taught the Tudors for many years, I am fine with the period. But wouldn’t you know it – the characters are all going to new places, travelling by modes of travel they didn't use in the last book and even meeting people who don’t speak the Queen’s English, and all of that requires research.

So far I have researched accusations of witchcraft, symptoms and treatments for gout (oil of stag’s blood and poultices which cause dreadful blisters were two suggestions), the start of ‘tulipmania’ in the late 16^th century, sea journeys and Dutch ports, the city of Haarlem, 16^th century Dutch names and Dutch vocabulary. You can spot a theme building there, I’m sure.

I love the research. It’s all great fun. However, it does consume vast amounts of time and that is holding up my NaNo word count. Luckily, I am on my own in the house during the week and not due to hold down a proper job until January (fingers crossed again), so I will have the time to do this.

I am pleased with the way the story is developing, and I started this novel with a plan, unlike the first one, where the planning began somewhere after chapter four. I am resisting the urge to edit, which, I have to say, is helping the story flow, even if, when I do look back over the pages, I do wince a bit. This is advice I’ve read from many an author – get the story out there, edit later.

Dutch river scene

As part of NaNoWriMo, I have joined the local Cambridge writing community on the NaNo website and on Facebook. I even ventured along to a ‘write-in’ at the CB2 café in central Cambridge and met a lovely bunch of writers. However, I seem to be more productive writing at home, in my lonely garret, which is actually a lovely, refurbished study with views of the garden courtyard and its out of place palm tree (not my garden design, I hasten to add). Maybe I should try meeting the Wrimos (or is that winos?) at their Wednesday evening social meets? Oh no, that requires being brave again!

My garden view

Continued Object Writing and NaNoWriMo

I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to keep up my daily stints of ten-minute object writes. I haven’t missed a word offered by the website Object Writing since I joined, even though some words gave me no immediate inspiration, power adapter and ladder being two of those. However, I managed to come up with something in the end, and have included both in a small selection of writing below.

Ladder                     Bandwagon                    Bonus

Power Adapter         Bicycle                          The Relatives

As we come up to November I am seriously thinking about taking part in this year’s NaNoWriMo which describes itself as ‘a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing’, and ‘an annual (November) novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world with a goal of writing a 50,000 word novel by 11:59:59, November 30’. 

The NaNoWriMo organisers stress that the writing is more about output than quality, as the approach forces you to ‘lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly’. I think that might be good for me, as I have a tendency to let go of the flow as I become engrossed in researching some minor detail or editing a section endlessly only to end up chopping it out. Forcing myself to write intensely, leaving research to a later date, getting on with the story and just creating could be a good thing. I have no fear of writing complete rubbish. I’m pretty much used to that!

I’m also looking forward to meeting up with local writers and sharing ‘laughably awful yet lengthy prose’ over a glass of something. Though being new to it all, I will have to gird my loins and brave the getting out and meeting people part. I’m hoping that the fact that I keep misreading the face book page ‘Cambridge Wrimos’ as ‘Cambridge Winos’ could foretell good times to come. Watch this space!