NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. It was supposed to be a “month of literary abandon”.  Well, in 19 days I have managed 1245 words where I should have written 30-odd thousand by now. 

 Having decided on a topic and main character I set about writing my first 200 words on a flight from Sydney to Adelaide on 1 November. That night while asleep my subconscious must have been churning away. I awoke with a dream that my main character was holding a blade to my throat in a very threatening manner.  That did put me off a bit and I did not write for the next few days.

I have rethought my characters and plot. I have changed the tone and attitude towards the main character.  In fact I have structured the whole thing so that there are multiple character sketches around a central theme rather than the story being about the one main character.  So a series of vignettes is probably closer to what I will end up with.  Since I have never written a novel, or even attempted to, I think the character development will be a useful exercise.

Will I get to 50,000 words in a month?  Doubtful. In a year? Perhaps. That is why I dub thee NaNoWriYr – National Novel Writing Year.