Halloween Pics and More

So I should be busy writing my novel but I’m not. Instead I’m having a quick catch up on here.
Last Friday there was a Halloween fancy dress party in the Sherwood Oak and Mrs H3 and I both dressed up (of course), along with a few other brave souls. It was an excellent evening and the photos are below.

I had bought the most fantastic witches’ hat from M&S and built the costume around that, as you can see Mrs H3’s costume was mainly the most fantastic red patent leather DM boots and a rather bouncy tutu.



So it’s Bonfire Night and all around I can hear the bangs of fireworks, although I can’t actually see anything. I love fireworks but I can’t be bothered to leave the house tonight to try and see them as it’s too cold out there and I’m still full of this horrid cold that I’ve had since last weekend. Instead we are going to Leeds Castle on Saturday evening for their ‘Legend of Excalibur’ display. Mrs H3 is excited ‘cos she gets to wear her wellies, I’m excited as I get to wear my Slytherin scarf – I’m not sure which of us is the sadder! LOL

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had got tickets for Elbow at Wembley. Since then they’ve announced a full tour (I get a feeling that Elbow are a bit like I Am Kloot on the touring front i.e. they don’t really stop) and the first night is at the Brighton Dome (Wembley is the final night) so we’ve got tickets for that too. Am very excited at this but also hoping IAK are going to tour the UK early next year ‘cos I’ll be going frantic by then as it’s been almost 7 months now since I last saw them live (and watching them on the internet doesn’t count however good they were!)

So I suppose I should get back to the novel. Jonathan Stroud (author of the wonderful Bartimaeus Trilogy) has sent me (and everyone else taking part in NaNoWriMo) an e-mail containing a pep talk and some advice for getting the story written and sticking to deadlines. I’m really behind now as I haven’t written anything on it since Sunday but I’m sure once I get to grips with the plotline I’m thinking about at the moment I’ll have loads to write about.

I've been struck by madness!

Okay so I think I may have done the dumbest thing I’ve ever thought of in my life – I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who haven’t got a clue what that is it’s the National Novel Writing Month. This wonderful (and let’s face it somewhat crazy) idea takes place in November every year and the idea is for participants to write an original fiction novel of 50,000 words or more between the first and last day of the month.

Now I’ve written a bit of stuff here and there, blogged a bit and I talk a good game but an original full length novel? Not something I’d ever really seriously considered, but then late night (and quite probably drunken) discussions with various online friends made me think it could be achievable.

After all how hard could it be? We’re not talking Booker Prize winning material here and as the site is quick to point out we’re not talking final draft material either. What you should end up with is a solid first draft which is enough to be proud of completing and the basis of something that might just conceivably be publishable someday; even if only online. You also get the accolade of being a winner on the site and get a certificate to say so.

Now of course to write a story you need to have a plot and I do have one – sort of. To be honest it’s a little vague (actually more than a little), but I do know that currently the story will be seventeen chapters which means the chapters need to be around 2,942 words each. This also means that I need to write 1,667 words a day to get the thing finished by 30th November. This seemed like an easy enough task until I sat down on Saturday with my admittedly not very well head on and tried to begin writing it.

1,667 words a day with characters you recognize for something like fanfic is simple, trying to come up with that number of words for an original story when you have no real idea of characters or plot is almost impossible.

Now I have been hampered this weekend by being ill, but I am pleased to report that I was on target with 3,362 words written by the end of Sunday evening, although working at the pub tonight has put me behind.

To be honest I have no idea why I’m doing this except that it’s a challenge and it makes a change from sitting around doing nothing productive in the evenings (oh yeah don't expect a handmade Christmas card this year as I haven't even started them).

Am I mad? Probably, but then I can't help feeling that for this competition being mad probably helps!

Interestingly, this blog entry, which is of course diverting me from valuable writing time, has used up 507 words and took me about ten minutes to write. See it's easy when you don't have a plot or characters to think about!