We are now on the approach to NaNoWriMo again – how did it come round so quickly? I suppose taking part in the summer camp version in June is what has made the time flash past! The November one is definitely still the main event, with tens of thousands of participants and lots more activity both in the website forums and in real life here in Edinburgh. I keep imagining I would like to go to San Francisco for the Night of Writing Dangerously, but as I have trouble staying awake later than 9 pm it would probably turn out to be the Evening of Writing in Perfect Safety for me.
I will be writing a novel set in the 1950s which I hope may be the start of a second mystery series – but don’t worry if you like the Pitkirtly mysteries, I will not abandon them either. I’m embarking on this new project partly because I am worried about overdoing the Pitkirtly ones and boring myself and everyone else with them, and partly because I decided NaNoWriMo was becoming too easy and I needed a different challenge.
I can’t really understand how writing 50,000 words in a month can possibly be described as ‘easy’, particularly when November is a busy, cold, dark, tiring month most years. But in my last few NaNos I have written at least 2,000 words a day, divided more or less equally into short bursts which I write in the morning, at lunchtime and after my evening meal.
I know I will find this November’s novel a challenge because I remember the last time I wrote a novel set at least partly in the past, and the first draft ended up full of asterisks and question-marks where I had decided I needed more research, and it has taken me nearly 5 years to get it almost ready to publish. Even now, I am still procrastinating because I need to draw a map to put at the start. I’m sort of hoping this year’s one won’t take quite so long to tidy up afterwards! But the moment of truth about that is nearly at hand.
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 