A Second Chance

In my last post, Life After NaNoWriMo, I wrote of my grandiose plans to pretty much finish the first draft of my NaNo novel in the month of December. I had finished NaNo on a high. The sky was the limit. Anything was possible, and all I had to do was seize the day! Ho, ho, ho. As far as writing my NaNo novel is concerned, I've done very little. You see, I had been lazy. I always knew I didn't like my story all that much, but to me the NaNo project was always more of an exercise in writing Continue Reading

Life after NaNoWriMo

My official NaNo graph. During NaNo, most of us are obsessed with our graphs! Winner! I did it! I "won" NanoWriMo! At the end of the day, November 30, my total word count was 50,606. I actually hit the 50,000 at 11pm on 29 November. To say I was relieved would be an understatement. It had been quite a marathon and I had some very, very dry days in there. But I am also, even days later, absolutely over the moon. I feel like I have achieved something valuable and learned some personal Continue Reading

Life and Death

It's hard to believe there is just one week left of NaNoWriMo. To be honest, it's kinda dragged for me, as my story began to stutter about a week in. From all I've read, this is quite normal but it's still not the most encouraging thing in the world when it happens to you, especially when you read the updates from other triumphant participants claiming 4,000 words that day, or 6,000 words, or in one case over 11,000 words. Some of these folks have their 50,000 words already. I mean, don't these Continue Reading

Thinking Time

Since I've undertaken this crazy NaNoWriMo venture, I'm sometimes conscious that to an observer it may appear as if I'm not doing anything if I'm not writing. Hubby is most supportive. He says, "Now, I will just go and do the dishes. I want you to stay here and write." So off he goes to do a chore we usually do together, and I feel guilty, because I have Facebook open. So I get up and do dishes. I really shouldn't feel guilty. I know I shouldn't, though sometimes it's difficult not Continue Reading

The Beginning

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Vicki who loved books. Every night she would slide into bed between the cool, pastel-striped flannelette sheets, and her mum would pull up the blankets and the pretty pink-and-white chenille bedspread and tuck her in. Then her mum would ask which book she should read, and Vicki would tell her. Vicki would then listen agog until her mum finally closed the book, kissed her goodnight, switched out the light and went into the room next door where Continue Reading