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Sunday 29 October 2017

NaNoWriMo 2017 - Prepare For The Wordness

It's that time again, dear readers.

Once again I am stepping into the mad, glad world of the National Novel Writing Month, in which myself and a mob of other certifiable wrimos will try and write fifty thousand words during the month of November. If we are really lucky, those fifty thousand words will come together in such a way as to be readable as a novella! (Or novel if we really hammer the word count.)

I blog about this every year - but I think it's worth blogging about. The entire idea of the event is to elevate people from the status of "One-Day" writers to, you know - writers. It doesn't need to be good. It doesn't need to be genre-defining or groundbreaking. All it needs to be is on the page. So anyone who has always wanted to try writing and just...hasn't... this is your time, this is your excuse. A mad dash, a sprint to the finish.

I've taken part every year since 2003. This will be my fifteenth year of word-count combat. It's not every year that I put together something that I am pleased with, but enough that I can look at my output and feel that my time wasn't wasted.

See, writing is a skill. It's a thing that gets better through doing. You learn what works and what doesn't. Through reading and also writing, you learn what flows, what doesn't. You learn how to describe a character, how to write dialogue, how to write a character that is believable, how to pace a story either through the standard three-act story pattern or via some weird method known only to you.

This year, I am kind of hyped for what I am writing - but then that happens with fair regularity. This time it is going to be set in the Starfinder universe, a game setting I am highly looking forward to playing and running in. I have a plot in mind, a bunch of characters to throw at it, a series of scenes I am looking forward to writing. It's definitely hype time.

My blog throughout the next month will be all to do with NaNo-related things - probably to do with my characters, my plot, themes behind what I am writing. I did it last year, too - it helps me keep on track and ensures that I'm not taking a big brain-detour while novel-writing.

Also, frankly, I don't have a lot to say about the political situation we find ourselves in right now. It's fucked all the way down. So, you know. Escapism. Nice.

Anyone want to join me on this journey of wordiness?

You're all very welcome.

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