Hello Everyone – Remember Me?

Okay so I was out of action for the whole of November, although I have to admit I didn’t do much novel writing, even with my hero Philip Pullman and the wonderful Piers Anthony (among others) giving me encouragement along the way. To be honest with only a couple of days to cobble together a plot I was never going to be onto a winner. Time now to get ready for next year’s event and then it’ll be a cinch!

So if you haven’t been busy writing, what the hell have you been up to? I can hear you asking. And it’s a good question. To be honest the answer is a bit of this and a bit of that. I think I’m going to split my news into several posts as I have loads to write about and loads of fantastic pictures to upload, otherwise this will be the longest blog post in the history of the world.

Firstly, and most importantly for my current mood there’s been a huge change around at work, with our Department being revised and renamed (farewell to Claims - but not to the work!), the section I work in being disbanded (hello to Peter and the Safety section) and my lovely boss Nick leaving on early retirement *sob* which has left me working for someone with whom I have somewhat of a problem (a slight understatement), something that has caused me a considerable amount of stress over the last month. I am hoping steps are being taken to sort the situation before I end up having a nervous breakdown – although said lovely boss predicted that it would be about a month before the doctor signed me off and almost everyone I’ve spoken to has told me I’m being harassed and need to go and see Welfare about it. My sleep patterns (never great anyway) are completely shot and I’m dreaming about the boss in question, which definitely isn’t a good sign. With the streamlining I’ve acquired a whole new set of tasks including attending meetings in the middle of nowhere (okay Whale Island, Portsmouth to be precise so far) and so I’ve now got the stress of travelling to add to all the other stresses of my life. Interesting to see how things fare in the next month or so. Looking on the bright side I only actually have another 4 days in the office, what with leaving do’s and Christmas parties and such so I expect I can survive somehow. I’ll also have 8 days of my advent calendar to open tomorrow – 8 pieces of Thornton’s chocolates should go a long way to improving my mood even if I do have another stultifyingly frustrating meeting to attend in the morning.

So onto the exciting stuff – the things I (and Mrs H3 naturally) have been up to in the last month. It’s been fun and almost makes up for the fact that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince wasn’t released on the 21st as it should have been. Hey look at the countdown – only another 220 days before the film’s out (and 12 days till Twilight – although the release date clashes with the Christmas party).

Oh yes and while I remember on what should have been release day (or was it the day before?) just to tease a bit more WB released a new trailer. Lots of new stuff which had me spending the first one and a half minutes screaming where's Snape? and then the last twenty three seconds squeeing excitedly at how they seem to have actually got it right for once.Obviously we won't know for sure until the film is released, and of course there won't be anywhere near enough Snape action (as there never is) but if the "fight back you coward" is in the right place then I'll be a happy girl.

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!