Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Well for some reason I've decided to take the plunge and join the (Inter)National Write a Novel in a Month competition.
The idea is to churn out 50,000 words this month - that's just over 1600 a day, and it's about quantity not quality, just getting your ideas down and then worrying about honing it later. 50k is a novella length; most novels are 70k+ and expect an airport bonkbuster to be about 200,000 words. Hell, If Julie Burchill can do it, so can I!
I had some spare hours at Boston airport on the way back from my trip to New York (pics here) and courtesy of a couple of incidents on my travels, set to working on a story on my laptop before the batteries conked out.
Never having written anything to speak of as fiction since school 35 years ago, luckily it coincided with NaNoWriMo so it's given me the push to move it on. Unfortunately my story contains very little literary merit.. err, ok, it's pretty much just lesbian filth with an attempt at a narrative glued in the gaps between smutty episodes. Oh - and some hardcore Catholicism thrown in for good measure.
There aren't any 'winners', just completers who hit the 50k target, and in 7 days I'm a gnat's crochet from halfway to the target and still managing to dredge up enough from my foetid imagination to keep the up wordcount. It's proving an interesting experience, snatching writing time as and when, carrying my masterpiece round on a memory stick, backing it up religiously and stealing snippets of conversation and others' experiences to glue into what laughably passes as a plot. Wish me luck!
UPDATE Saturday 14th:
Well I've just cracked 30,000 words and am running hell for leather to the finishing line. Unfortunately I've got to concentrate on a narrative now, and I really don't know how the blooming thing's going to end.... Quick, more sex scenes needed!
Thursday 19th.... Nearly at 48,000 words and still more than a week to go! I've finished the narrative and am now getting the characters to talk for 5 minutes before they shag.
Saturday 21st - cracked the 50k barrier! I've done it. Whooo!
Tuesday 24th - 55,500 words and the filthy first draft emailed out for critical feedback.
Labels: NaNoWriMo National Write a Novel in a Month competition literary writing creative porn
