A NaNoWriMo Carol

Every year since 2007, in November, I’ve taken part in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short (or even just Nano for even shorter!). The aim of NaNoWriMo (which is actually international in scope) is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in just 30 days.

I’ve always managed to achieve this target, and often go far further. Last year I managed to write a massive 200,019 words! You can read about my exploits from last year in a guest post that I wrote for the blog of my friend (and rival!) Miriam Joy, who also wrote 200k last year (and did so two days faster than I did...).

I will once again be taking part in NaNoWriMo this year, although I’ll “only” be going for 150k. So far, for the last six years that I’ve done NaNoWriMo, my cumulative word count stands at 704,291. And so if I make my target this year, next year becomes very interesting...

My novel for this year, my seventh NaNoWriMo effort, will be called “The Seventh Cycle”, and it will be a sci-fi/fantasy adventure novel. If you’re a Nanoer as well and would like to see how well I do this year, feel free to add me as a buddy on the NaNoWriMo website.

One of the great things about NaNoWriMo is the social aspect. I’m in London, and apparently London is the second biggest NaNoWriMo region in the world – beaten only by New York. Last night we had our first kick-off party, where it was good to see old friends and new. And we have another one on Wednesday...

The First NanoLondon 2013 Kick-Off Party

For the past few years I’ve also got people to sponsor me to raise some money for charity. My chosen charity is St Luke’s Hospice (Harrow and Brent), who helped to look after my father shortly before he died in 2009. I was very grateful for the care and assistance that they gave to my father and my family, and this is my way of giving something back to them. If you’d like to sponsor me for this year’s efforts, you can do so via my JustGiving page.

So, it’s not long to go until NaNoWriMo 2013 kicks off. I’ve booked two weeks off of work in November to focus on the novel writing, and I’ve been working longer hours during October so that I can do shorter hours on the days that I am working during November!

But I’ll still be keeping this blog going (although the posts may be shorter). And, as you may have guessed by the title of this post, during the next month or so this blog will be visited by three ghosts, so keep an eye out for them...

Next Week: My First Encounter With a Frenchman