National Novel Writing Month 2016

So I'm sure a lot of people reading this (if anyone reads this that is XD) have heard of National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as it's commonly abbreviated which is the aim to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I've tried a few times, the site has me registered as a member for almost 7 years, but as for attempts I only have obvious evidence for 2013, 2015 and this year since they're the only ones that have been typed up.

In the past I've only owned a desktop computer so I've had to attempt to hand write my novel and then type it up to get an accurate word count. Needless to say that hasn't been an overwhelming success. In fact in 2013 I only achieved 8,365 and 2015 was even worse at 1,020. I don't think it helps that I usually 'pants' it aka flying by the seat of your pants aka writing whatever comes.

This year a few things changed. I had an unexpected tax refund. Well I say unexpected but I knew I'd paid too much tax a couple of years back and it was something I kept meaning to sort out but never got around to it and in the end the sent it before I got a chance. So I decided to spend some of it on something I'd wanted for ages to help with my writing - a laptop!
               
I got an Acer Aspire ES 15 since it was on offer at Argos (bigger hard drive than the one I'd originally picked). It can be sluggish if you have a lot of browser windows open for some reason. It doesn't bother me too much though. The first photo is it wearing it's lovely sticker from Amazon. The owl case in the second picture is also from Amazon - it has handles. :)

So back to NaNoWriMo the laptop made things much much faster and less hand crampy. I ended up having to miss a fair few days thanks to work, I just checked and it looks like I missed 7 days completely although there was also one day I only wrote 100 or so words so I'm not sure how much that counts LOL. Regarding work I have some awkward shifts like 2pm-7pm which when you get up doesn't give masses of time for writing nor when you get home. I also did about 4 or 5 Saturdays overtime over November all 2pm-6pm so again not masses of time. Really for me - a retail worker - October would be the better month for NaNoWriMo, although saying that I did do a lot of overtime in October this year including working every single day of the half-term week. Great fun.

So what was/is my novel about and how many words did I write in the end? The working title is 'Healing Hayden' but I don't know how well it fits because even though Hayden goes through the most trauma he's not the only character. The other main is his identical twin brother Jasper. Both have their secrets but while Jasper is generally happy with himself and just needs to figure out timing, Hayden is very unhappy with himself, not helped by bullying at school and later a serious assault. He does figure things out eventually but I'm not at that point yet. Currently he's in hospital following the assault. And as of last night my word count is 29,534 words. My aim was to get to the 30,000 mark but I was a little blocked and it was getting late so I called it a night.

Overall although I didn't make the 50,000 words I'm incredibly proud of myself because 29,534 is the most I've ever written for one story and I think it's a story with potential. My main worry regarding eventual publication would be the assault scene - it's pretty graphic... Eh, I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

Stef Out xx