Briefly yesterday I considered a last minute log on to NaNoWriMo to sign up for a second year of 'writing a novel in a month'. For those who don't know the aim is to write a 50,000 word minimum novel in the month of November (National Novel Writing Month). In previous years November for me has involved growing a moustache for Movember but now I'm mostly bearded anyway I haven't done that for a few years. Last year I did NaNoWriMo for the first time and managed to get to the magic 50k words a day or two before the end of the month.

The story I chose to work on last year was one I'd sketched out previously for a Writing on the Wall competition: 'Dragon's Pen' which I presented in front of such luminaries as A.L. Kennedy at Liverpool's Bluecoat several years earlier. Having the broad idea sketched out made the 50k words achievable as it was like writing ten short stories - having each chapter ostensibly as a set piece. This year, although I have two ideas for novels, I don't have them sketched out anywhere near as much. Perhaps if I did I would go for it again. But I don't.

In any case, at the start of the year I had a Writing Plan and that has been hardly touched. So instead of diverting my attention to NaNoWriMo I will use the month to get on with one or other of the Projects I had in mind at the start of the year. Over the next two days I'll decide which one to get on with and use 'Month NaNoWriMo' to get one of these a lot further down the line.

Anyway this year it's No NaNoWriMo for me. Good luck to anyone doing it this year. It is a great experience and brilliant to know that you can get so many words down on a single project - basically with 'just' 1667 words a day. It doesn't sound that difficult when you say it quickly.