Writing and growing

I have never written a novel before, but I have written at least four beginnings of novels. That is quite a poor record, and one which I intend to improve on in the next few weeks. But why bother? Why in the next few weeks? And what makes me think that this endeavour will end any more successfully than my previous attempts? The answer (or at least an answer) is that it is National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) and I am taking part. Another reason might be that some people manage to get obscenely rich writing absolute tripe and I want a piece of the action, but such reasoning would be the symptom of a bitter and diseased mind.

Writing...

The goal of Nanowrimo is to have written 50,000 words by the 1^st of December. It is the second day, and I have written some words, but I am not entirely sure how many because I have decided to write with a pen and paper. This is to avoid the temptation offered by technology to make innumerable edits to each sentence, slowing the process down to a crawl. On paper, it is so long-winded and messy to do much crossing out and re-writing that I tend simply to carry on and leave the editing until later. This allows me to churn out draft material of extremely dubious quality in volumes that I could otherwise only dream of. Other people have willpower; I have a pen and paper. But despite this winning strategy and the inaccuracy of my word-counting, I know that I am already well behind schedule, having written probably in the region of 1,000 words.

...writing...

I’m not worried. While I appreciate the discipline that such targets encourage, and know that I am dire need of developing my self-discipline if I am ever to conquer the earth, I can’t help but remind myself that if I don’t meet the target, nothing terrible will happen. I won’t be ‘fired’ from being a novelist. The important thing, I hope, is that despite already being well behind target, I am determined to continue. In much the same way, each Lent I set out abstaining from meat and booze with a serene kind of certainty that I will have a drink or a packet of pork scratchings at some stage in the forty days, but that it won’t matter and I’ll carry on the next day as if nothing had happened. I’ll still get the health and economic benefits of not eating meat and drinking alcohol for the rest of Lent. Similarly, even if I don’t manage to keep up with the 1,667 words per day needed to meet the Nanowrimo target, at the end of the month I will still have hundreds of pages to show for my efforts.

...writing...

I should also be sporting a fine moustache. It may sound incredibly ambitious, but alongside my novel-writing I will also be trying to find time to cultivate a full set of upper-lip whiskers. Now, that might seem like a noble project in itself, and indeed it is. But I have an ulterior motive for growing a moustache for a month. The more alert amongst you, my dear readers, will have noticed that it is Movember, an annual event lasting for the whole of the month formerly known as November, when men cease shaving their upper lips to raise money and awareness around male cancer charities. So visit my Movember profile at http://mobro.co/richmetcalf and donate.

...and growing.