Back after NaNoWriMo

Hi all, I'm back! After the unmitigated hell that was the National Novel Writing Month.

OK, I did the requisite 50,000 words and a bit more, so I was proclaimed a winner. However, the book isn't finished, and I actually wanted to do 100,000 words, so I only feel partially successful.

Back in July, I wrote 100K in a month, but I was on holiday from one job and one course then. It's not so easy to chisel out three or four hours a day when many of those days are twelve hour work days as well. Even forgoing wimpish things like food and sleep, it's not easy.

So although I made the 50K with a couple of days to spare, I'd already given up on the idea of 100K.

It was also difficult at times to find the motivation to do anything after a day's work and/or a teacher training course. Doing stuff before going to work might be considered an option: until you've heard my wife complain about being woken early, that is.

I still have about 10,000 words to go to finish the book, and in general I'm happy about the structure, shape, content, language, tone and pace. When done, I'm going to set it to one side and start producing second drafts from the three other completed books I have stacked up.

But that's editing, not writing. So I've developed the ideas for several short stories to keep my hand in while I'd doing the editing and patching and cutting and moving and rewriting and adding and subtracting...

And I'll have slightly more time for this blog as well. The next post will be about editing.