NaNoWriMo 2013

It's October 31st today. For many people it is Hallowe'en, a time for fun & frolics, for the Pagans among us it is the Celtic festival of Samhain and in Mexico it is 'El Dia de los Muertos. For me, and for many others around the world, it is NaNoWriMo Eve, the last day of freedom and relaxation for a whole month. Every spare moment from now on will be taken up with writing our 'grande oeuvre' or, more likely, fighting writer's block. By November 30th many will be basking in the success of having written a 50,000 word novel in 30 days whilst awaiting their winner's T-shirt, others will shrug their shoulders and vow to do better next year, still others will still be suffering from the writer's block that set in on the first day. All, hopefully, will have had fun, if not with their novel at least on the boards, many will have made new friends. Originally I wasn't going to do NaNo this year as I have too much other work on board including journal editing and writing a chapter for the next edition of the Handbook of Counselling Psychology. However I had a dream, literally, and the plot for NaNo was there before me. It is a wartime mystery set on a USAAF airfield somewhere in East Anglia. More of the plot in my next post. Besides writing for NaNo I intend to edit and polish the story for the Ipswich Arts Festival (IpArt) next summer. I just hope I don't get writer's block after the first word.

In Memoriam - Script Frenzy

Well, here I am and 6 months have passed since the last post here. I avoided making a New Year's Resolution about updating my blog in the hope it might encourage me to do so - it didn't. Still never mind I'm here now and the quill is sharpened, pity my wits don't match my quill as I have hit writer's block. I;m hoping that a glass of Belgian Trappisten beer might help. Normally at this time of year, June, I'd be too busy to even contemplate blogging as I would be taking part in 'ScriptFrenzy', this was a competition where you had to produce a 100 page script, film, theatre, radio, whatever in 30 days. It was great fun while it lasted, 5 years or so but sadly it's popularity waned and now it is simply another part of NaNoWriMo, (National Novel Writing Month) in November. For those who don't know it NaNoWriMo sets you the task of writing a short novel, 60,000 words in 30 days. I have succeeded a few times though the results will never see the light of day as novels. The trick to achieving 60,000 and still having a life is not to edit or correct. It may sound a waste of time but I have mined what I have written to produce short stories, one of which I read at the Ipswich Arts Festival, (IpArt) a couple of years ago. I hope that I'll write some more here before a further 6 months have passed. In the mean time 'cheers; as I lift my glass