NaNoWriMo 2014

I try and make it a rule not to post anything on here unless I actually have something to post, but I’ve not put anything up for over two weeks and thought I better had.  I could just post an amusing picture of a cat with a misspelt caption, but I’ll try and talk about something vaguely relevant instead.

As you may or may not be aware, because it’s the October of an even-numbered year, it’s going to November next month.  The time when clean-shaven persons grow moustaches for charity, fireworks are let off to celebrate a successful counter-terrorism operation 400 years ago, and the weather upgrades from ‘A Bit Dreary’ to ‘Absolutely Miserable’.

It is also, of course the month in which the total word count (if not the total literary quality) of Planet Earth leaps, as tens of thousands of people engage in National Novel Writing Month (abbreviated as NaNoWriMo, further abbreviated as NaNo).  As you may recall, last year I succeeded in the target of thrashing out 50,000 words in 30 days, but only by the skin of my teeth.

This year, I have yet to decide whether or not I’ll be taking part.  I’d like to, but it looks like November is going to be very busy for us in terms of weekends, which is valuable catch-up time for all the writing that doesn’t get done during the week.  Added to that, my wife won’t be doing it this year due to academic commitments and it’s always less fun when you’re doing it by yourself.

I’m also not sure that my idea for this year will actually stretch to 50,000 words.  I’m planning something a bit different to my usual swashbuckling word-churners.  This year’s project will be a children’s comedy adventure, with the working title ‘Galapagos Finch and the Dodo Do-Do of Doom’.  The titular hero is a biologist/conservationist/international adventurer who learns that there is a surviving population of dodos on a remote island in the Indian Ocean.  However, others are also after the dodos for nefarious purposes of their own.  High jinks, as the saying goes, ensue.  It will be silly and fun, with a vague environmental/conservation theme.

It’s an idea that’s been knocking about in my head for a while, getting refined and extended.  Even so, it may not stretch for required the word count.

I’m thinking I will probably at least attempt it.  If it doesn’t stretch, or if I don’t hit word count due to weekendly busyness, at least I’ll have made a good start on the first draft.

In other news, I’ve finished the second of my New Adventures of Malartic and Lampourde, a story entitled ‘The Love of Chevalier Malartic’.  If you’re very good, I’ll post it on here at some point soon.

Watch this space.