A NaNoWriMo update - Day Five

I thought I'd give you just a quick update on how my National Novel Writing Month is going. It's Day Five, and I'm still very excited about the characters and the storyline of this novel, called A Marriage Adrift. It's early days, I know.

But...(drumroll please) today I hit the first 10,000 words. Yay!

When I set myself this challenge of writing 50,000 words in one month, I decided that the only way I could carry on preparing The Navy Wife (this is the sequel to The Englishman, which will be out at the end of November) for publication, and write 1,600 words a day on a new novel, was to get  up a little earlier in the mornings and write the required words before I took my terrier for his morning walk.

Since the 1st of November was a Sunday, I took the day off The Navy Wife and managed to write the first 2,000 words for NaNoWriMo in the morning without getting up at the crack of dawn. But come Monday, I was at my desk at 6.30 and wrote a whopping 2,334 words before 9am.

Unfortunately my back has been playing up too, so I've been hampered by having to lie flat on the floor to stretch it at regular intervals. Still, I'm managing to do 12-hour days now, starting at 6.30am and finishing at 6.30pm. And I'm still standing...(just).


Waking up early has been hard, but I hope by next Monday I will have got used to it. Hopefully next week my back will allow me to get to the gym too, giving me more energy to carry on.


I will be back next week with another update. In the meantime, if you too are doing NaNoWriMo, let me know how you are getting on. And wish me luck!

The terrier camouflaged by the autumn leaves.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo?

What is NaNoWriMo you ask? Well, it's the National Novel Writing Month, which takes place each year in November, when thousands of authors, or aspiring novelists, challenge themselves to write 50,000 words (I know, not quite a full-length novel, but nearly) in 30 days. That means exactly 1,667 words per day. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy...?

I've tried to do NaNoWriMo for years, and have never got further than about 10,000 words, so this year, having given up my day job to write full-time (eek!), I'll try to complete this challenge.

The NaNoWriMo site is a font of knowledge how to achieve the required word count, as well as what you can do in advance of the 1st of November to prepare for the writing month. Go to the site for more, but here is a quick summary of what it's all about:

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. 

On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.

The sequel to The Englishman, the Navy Wife, is now going through its final edits, and should be out in late November, so I'm going to attempt to write the bulk of the 3rd book in the series during the month of November. This novel is now fully plotted (or as fully as I ever plot in advance, which is about 75%), and even has a working title, 'A Marriage Adrift'.

So, wish me luck, and let me know if you are a fellow NaNoWriMo madwoman/man. I'd love to add you as my writing buddy on the NaNoWriMo site here!