First Post... and NaNoWriMo 2013

Ok, so I've not done a blog for myself before. I've played around with them at work (used to do one for a small publishing house, but hey, they've now gone under...), but I wanted to set one up purely to get some practice with writing and maybe hint at the novel that I'm currently working on...

Yeah, I'm an aspiring writer. How many of those are out there? How many of those make it? It doesn't matter. The fact is that we are writing, we are creating words that describe what makes us human. Love, drama, the thrill of adventure. What could be better than that?

I've gone out on a crazy limb the last month and decided to try NaNoWriMo. If you haven't heard of it, it's short for National Novel Writing Month and it starts in November. The deal is you have to write 50,000 words (or more) in a month.

I thought, hey, let's try it. It's all over Tumblr and it sounds pretty interesting. That book you're trying to write is only 35,000 so far, so push yourself. Add in the extra wordcount (and hopefully some decent scenes) and see how you go. Any writing is worth it.

It was painful. Tiring. Frazzling. I had a few days here and there where I thought, hells, I'm not going to make this. I even had five days where I didn't even touch the computer because I was holed up in bed trying to fight off the usual late Autumn bug. I had a week left to write 25,000 words and I was panicked. Because I do panic. When I want to do something, I like to do it, but I also have the little thing inside called Procrastination. I read, I watch TV, I stare out into space dreaming up little snippets and then forget to write them down. 

So I took a week off work. I had days to use up and decided to go for it. 

I did it. I wrote 25,000 words in roughly seven days and made my target of 50,000 words (and a few extra) and got that 'Winners Certificate'! I've still got a few thousand words left before I finish the novel (and only in it's draft form too) but I did it. And it's exhillarating. 

Except now I want to write. I want to write more and I can't stop. Somehow this NaNoWriMo has morphed me into a writing monster. I don't want to quit. I can't sit and stare at the screen without writing something down.

Hence the blog. And apologies if this is just another self-promotional rant that I'm sure most people get irritated about. It won't all be about me if I have anything to say about it. 

The internet is about giving us a voice and I think I'm ready to use it.