NANOWRIMO WINNER!

I did it!

Fifty thousand words written in 27 days. I have written a novel in a month and can now claim to be a NanoWriMo Winner of 2016.

Of course, it's not really a novel. 50,000 words is very short word count and it's far from being finished. I am only about two thirds through the plot so far. Bits of what I have aren't bad. Bits of it, written as I tried to get to know my characters a little better, would need some pretty severe editing and some of it needs to be culled entirely!

But none of that really matters because the essence of NanaWriMo is to write fast without fear or the self-editor's red pen at your back. When you undertake this challenge, you write for you without worrying about where it might be taking your characters or plot. You write when you really don't think you have any more words. You write every day no matter what your diary looks like because if you don't then the hill that you have to climb the next day will be even steeper.

Not many people finish. Last year, almost half a million writers began on November 1st but only 40,000 of them managed to log the full quota of words at the end of the month. That's because it's tough. There's no getting away from it. But it's like anything else, if you want something enough you will always find a way of getting to it. I have a little sign stuck on my wall. (See below.) This is my motto (although obviously I deviated from it slightly for November.) Perseverance and resilience. Isn't that what we teach our children? Well, it turns out that it's just as important for adults too.

So what next?

Well, I quite like Chrissie, Lucas and Paula and the imaginary island of Kinsay that I have spent the last month creating. I think I will go back at some point and start again with what I have so far and see if I can turn their story into a half decent book. But for now, I must return to the projects that I was working on before I interrupted myself. Lots of half finished projects is fun but it won't get me to where I'm going.

I shall award myself the rest of the day off and tomorrow I shall get back on with the job in hand, the editing of Postcards from a Stranger. So it's bye bye to The Lighthouse for now but thank you. It's been a blast!

Imogen x

CREATING IMAGINARY WORLDS

'So, how's Nanowrimo going?' I hear you cry.

So far so good, thank you for asking. It's currently day 14 as I type this so we are almost halfway through. My word count stands at a healthy 27,792 which is 4,454 words ahead of where I need to be to finish by the end of the month. That might not sound like much to you but it's like a lovely, comfort blanket for me because it means I have a couple of days' grace  when I can get away with not writing anything and still not fall behind!

My favourite part of my Nano challenge this year is my world creation. This is the bit where the writer makes the action happen somewhere that is so visible to the reader in their mind's eye that they can believe it might be real.

I have created an island off the tip of Scotland. I have never actually been further north than Inverness so it's requiring quite a lot of imagination to paint my scenery. This is where Google comes in. I have images, wiki pages, sunset times, tide tables, ferry timetables, the lot. I have even dreamt up an airstrip which I think might pass muster and of course the lovely lighthouse which is at the centre of my story.

So maybe, when all this is over and if my story feels like it could have legs, I might go on an actual research trip up there to see how close my imagination is to reality. I might wait until the Spring however. Bit chilly for me in winter. I am currently binge-watching episodes of 'Shetland' whilst I do the ironing. I thought I might try Balamory next!

Imogen x

NANOWRIMO : THE BLOG

It's that time of year again when writers all over the world slink away from social media and can be seen scratching their heads, weeping over their laptops and consuming copious quantities of coffee.

Yes it's NaNoWriMo - that's National Novel Writing Month to the uninitiated. It's a writing challenge. All you have to do is write 50,000 words in 30 days and you win! It's as simple as that.

The name is a misnomer as it's actually an International affair now. Last year 351,489 people signed up from countries all over the world. Only 42,423 actually finished with their 50,000 words in the bag by 30th November.

I have entered NaNoWriMo twice and have completed the full word count both times, although there was a week or so in the middle last time when I thought I might have to give up for lack of inspiration.  It's exciting and frustrating and exhausting all at the same time with a vibrant and very supportive community who are all there to help (and/or distract) you with your novel.

The only trouble is that back in September, I decided that I wasn't going to do NaNo this year and promptly stopped thinking about my plot. Then today, October 31st and the day before it starts, I changed my mind. So now I am having to think very fast.....

Anyway, I'll keep you up to date with how it's going and in the meantime, I can show you the cover that I've quickly made. I was going to call it "The Girl in the Lighthouse" to follow current trends but there wasn't room for all those words.

Wish me luck. I'm going in!

WHY WON'T PEOPLE SMILE AT ME?

Nobody smiles at me any more.

It's true. Even though I smile at everyone I pass on my walks, almost none of them smile back. Some of them don't even smile when I'm grinning at them like a Cheshire cat.

And they say Yorkshire is friendly!

Actually, I'm not telling you the whole story. I do walk a lot and I smile at everyone. But I am multitasking. I will invariably be listening to a book at the same time as walking which means I am wearing earphones. 

I have decided that it's the earphones that put people off. It's as if, by putting on my earphones, I am telling the world that I no longer want to engage. I have partitioned off my sense of hearing and thus part of my self and as a result shown that I do not want to be disturbed.

But this isn't true. Yes, I am using the time that it takes me to walk to do something else as well - in this case read books that I would otherwise never make time for. What I don't understand is why this means strangers can pass shoulder to shoulder with me and still fail to acknowledge that I am there. This makes me sad.  (Here I am looking sad in my earphones.)

There are a number of explanations for this odd response.

1. They assume I do not want to be disturbed... but I'm not looking for a twenty minute conversation - just a smile.

2. They think that because I'm wearing earphones, I must be the kind of person that will not engage socially, like some kind of thug. I sometimes want to stop them and say 'Honestly! I'm no threat. I'm listening to The Archers' Omnibus!'

3. They are just glad of an excuse not to engage with me because they are naturally anti-social themselves.

I have tried to find earphones that are discreet and won't put people off but I can't get them to stay in my ears so all I can do is continue to smile and hope to surprise them into smiling back. Actually, it's quite disconcerting to be ignored. It's like I'm a ghost or am wearing an invisibility cloak. And also, I think it's a bit rude. But then maybe they think I'm the rude one for listening to books in the street?

Imogen.

WHAT MAKES AN IDEA GOOD? (And other related thoughts)

Are you an ideas person? Do you come up with schemes, congratulate yourself on your ingenuity and spend a small fortune buying the constituent parts only to decide later that you've changed your mind?

I think that's pretty normal. Your idea could be about anything but it'll be the best one you've ever had and it makes your insides fizz just to think about it. It scampers around the back garden of your mind, squealing from time to time and demanding to be let around the front.

So you open the gate.... only to find that your idea has suddenly gone all shy, lost its self-confidence, is skulking in the dark alley and won't come out. Or worse! It appears in your public space in a blaze of noise and fury and then when it's there, centre-lawn so to speak, loses its nerve, like it has suddenly realised that it's dressed in a bikini when everyone else is wearing anoraks.

I'm like that. I have ideas all the time - mainly about how I'm going to become a successful writer, which is my dream. It's a lovely dream. Every day I take it out, huff on it a bit, polish it with my sleeve. But it's not very stable. It shifts about all the time. Just when I think I have hold of it, it wriggles out of my grasp.

And, I have realised, the slipperiness of my dream (and so the validity of my ideas) depends entirely on my levels of self-belief on any given day.
Yesterday : I am great. I can do this. People tell me all the time that they like my stuff. All I have to do is keep working hard.
Today : I don't know why you're wasting your time. It's almost impossible to get an agent. The market for the stuff you write is already flooded and anyway, what makes you think it's any good?

This is normal, I know. Head versus heart. The intellect beating the intuition into a pulp. But what I MUST remember is that how I feel on any given day doesn't alter the validity of the idea. If it was a good idea when I felt positive about it then it probably still is.

This is a picture of the sky over my home town. That's my idea, that is. That orange bit burning bright in the middle of all the grey...

BEING (VERY NEARLY) FIFTY.

Drum roll please.......

In three days time, I am going to be 50.

There. I've written it down and it didn't feel too awful. Actually, I've been saying it out loud for a while, just so that I get used to hearing it. 'When I'm 50....' and 'I'm 50 this year...' and even once 'I'm 50 now you know so you can't expect me to...'

The thing about milestone birthdays it that they just keep coming. I remember being devastated that I was going to be 17. It felt so very grown up when 16 had been filled with childish frolics for which I didn't have to take responsibility.

I have no recollection of turning 20 - it's lost in a haze of other Septembers.

When I was 30, I had a party at my house which was fun but not wild because I was pregnant with my eldest. I felt old, that my youth was already behind me but I was just starting out on my new motherhood adventure so that didn't matter. I remember telling myself that the passing years were not an issue because I was managing to cram so much into my life.

By 40 I was exhausted after a decade of pregnancies and babies but I scrubbed myself up and had a party. I mean, you do, don't you? Just to show that you've still got it. Life begins at 40, people kept telling me. It was like some desperate mantra that we all grasped at so that we could pretend that we weren't perturbed by the top of that hill which was looming into sight.

It turns out that being in your 40s is actually pretty cool. I discovered a clear sense of self without the fear of what others thought and surrounded myself with other strong, women who all seemed to think like me. It's been a cracking decade.

And now 50.

I've read lots of articles - it's the new 30 you know. We can do as we please, wear what we like, are just coming to our peak and certainly women in their 50s don't look like women in their 50s did when I was growing up.

I'm not entirely convinced that it's the new 30 though. My eyes no longer function as effectively as they did, my hair seems to have forgotten what colour it's supposed to be and if you pinch my skin it doesn't spring back into place obediently. They are definite signs of wear and tear.

But my attitude to life? Now, that is definitely still improving. I am excited about my future. I have really big plans. The world is most definitely still my oyster. I also appear to have developed some wisdom of sorts on my trail through the first 50 years and the foundations of my life seem pretty stable. Whilst I may be on my way back down the hill, I can take the journey as slowly as I like. Why not stop to investigate the tiniest flower or spend time dangling my feet in a cooling stream? There is absolutely no rush any more. I don't know how long it's going to take me to reach the bottom but I'm going to enjoy every step.

Imogen x

SUMMER HOLIDAYS GUILT TRIP

The summer holidays are almost upon us. Six long, hopefully hot, weeks without the pressure of extra-curricular schedules and nagging about homework and uniform laundry. The kids sprawling on a blanket under a tree reading books for pleasure and contemplating the shapes of clouds. Games involving water, perfect ice cream cones, camp outs.

And now back to reality. Six weeks of trying to do what I have to do with four, slightly smaller people getting in my way. Six weeks of cajoling them away from their screens and then, when that doesn’t work, banning screens entirely. Six weeks of trying to get them to leave the house because I’m bored and them flatly refusing because they want downtime. Six weeks of them eating whatever they can forage because frankly, with so much extra tidying up to do, who can be bothered to cook?

No. For me, the summer holidays seem to start and finish with one thing - parental guilt.

It’s ridiculous really. My children are perfectly content to lounge around inside, playing, chatting, listening to music and doing things on screens. They don’t mind what they eat as long as there’s a plentiful supply of it and if I didn’t suggest a single outing all holiday then that would be completely fine by them. All this perfect summer outside rot is entirely the product of my imagination, formed partly from my own childhood, from books I’ve read and The Waltons.

So why do I feel so guilty when the real summer doesn’t match the imaginary one?

I think it’s because I see how they choose to spend their time as a waste. If I had endless free days, I wouldn’t spend them inside, building invented worlds out of cubes or watching American sitcoms on repeat. But what about when I  was 12-19? What would I have chosen then? 

That’s the trouble. I didn’t really get a choice because there were rules about what was acceptable. No-one offered me a smorgasbord of relaxation options and said - pick one. I played out because I wasn’t allowed in. There was barely any TV and I had no you tube. I was bored so I had to make my own fun. And this is what I want to impose on my own children because that’s how it ‘should’ be.

It’s not like they are wasting their lives. In term time, every available moment is filled with something worthy and two of them have activities that don’t stop even for the summer. So surely I should just chill and let them do whatever they fancy, no matter how pointless?

Well, one things’s for sure. If I try to impose my idea of summer on them, then we will all have a much more confrontational holiday than if I don’t. And from a selfish point of view, if I let them ‘chill’ all summer then I will have no problem hitting all my own deadlines. 

But what will I do with the guilt?

Imogen x