Human

Here it is, again. How are you feeling? Are you good?

Are you ready for Nano?

In the famous words of one of my favourite characters on TV, Oh Boy! - When my friend asked me if I was ready, my response was, asterisk cry asterisk, literally. And then it was along the lines of 'I'm not prepared, my brain is yucky and I haven't thought about it enough.' The truth is, I have thought about nothing else and sometimes that can be a downfall when you're trying to write a novel. If I overthink an idea the novel is capital shite before I've even started writing it. Jenny, being the amazing and ever so supportive friend, gave me a little reassurance and in that moment, I realized something...

Our conversation went a little something like this.

27. At Last

“I think that to write well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice–they all make fine fuel.” – Edna Ferber

FYI Writing is very hard, and no, I'm not just figuring it all out now, I thought it better to say aloud to get it off my chest. I don't think anyone chooses to write, if it's in you, it takes you and there is nothing you can do about it, so shut up and do as the voices say.

                        (I blurred the last line of the story, I have friends reading this blog, you know?)

I have two main reasons for writing this blog, firstly...

While I think it is pitiful that this is my first post of the New Year, I do have a good reason, and that reason is obviously writing related. In my previous post  This Woman's Work I spoke about completing Nanowrimo. The good news is I think so far I've been able to keep the discipline it enforced, by writing consistently and swallowing back the excuses I've got a lot done, hence no blog posts. I finished the Freak Shows!!!

26. This Woman's Work

Yatta! (I did it – Thank you, Hiro) 

I completed the Nano challenge four or five minutes before we hit Tuesday 22nd and for the first time in, I don't know how long, I was able to fall asleep within seconds of dragging my arse to bed. This month was definitely tough and I hate how much pressure I put on myself to do a certain count each day. Nano was challenge enough and then I added to it, yes I finished early but because I really don't like the thought of not finishing a deadline on time.


Nano in 2012? I’ve proved to myself that with enough discipline I can deliver, I can hammer out thousands of words and even finish a novel. I’m not sure I need to prove that to myself every year, what I do hope is the habit of writing consistently, swallowing back excuses and repeating positive mantras such as ‘keep going’ continue well after Nano is over.

25. Many The Miles

On your marks, get set...

I love Sara Bareille; she makes beautiful music like 'Breathe Again' and inspiring music like Many The Miles which I chose for the title of my post today. I joined Nano in 2009 and wrote and completed a novel called 'WIPS' about, you guessed it, a writer who never finished anything. But, because of stresses I sat out last year, this year I'm jumping back on the bandwagon with a new title 'Freak Shows' which is a young adult, slightly dark themed adventure.

Although I won't have time to post about my progress on nano, you can check my profile on there. It has a word count scoreboard. I don't think there is anyone who doesn't know about Nano by now, unless you're not a writer and have no writers in your family, but in short you have to write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days.


I think it looks a little arrogant of me not to post a synopsis, it looks as though I don't want my idea stolen, because as original as you think your idea is, it really isn't, everything has been done before. My problem is writing a synopsis that engages you without giving away the best part so until then; I'm leaving it blank, because no summary is better than a bad one.

Check out Sara's music, she's great.

Title info. Mentioned in post

Ciao x