1382: Foreword

It’s November tomorrow, and that means NaNoWriMo. Or, if you’re me, and you like to be awkward, it means monopolising your daily blog with creative writing rather than inane blog posts about nothing in particular and/or video games.

Yes! I’m going to do it again. Much like previous years, I’m going to write… something every day for the next month. Exactly what that’s going to be I haven’t quite decided yet — and if previous years are anything to go by I will probably “improvise” it and make it up as I go along, with variable results — but I do have a few themes, plots and characters in mind already; it’s just a case of actually fleshing them out into something over the course of a month.

Normally I try and post a minimum of 500 words per day for my generic posts and often exceed that; in November, because I’m writing something a bit more long-form, I typically set myself a minimum of 1,800 words instead. I’m going to stick to that because it’s worked pretty well for me in past years, and I’ve usually been able to churn out 2,000 words or more each day, resulting in a total of 60,000+ words by the end of the month, which is sort of novel length-ish.

As for what I’m going to write about? Well, you’re going to have to wait and see, aren’t you? Largely because I haven’t decided which of the ideas I have I’m going to run with as yet. Those who have read my previous work know that I have various stylistic elements that I’m rather fond of using — and have been since creative writing classes at school and university, as it happens — so I’m pondering whether or not to experiment a bit with other perspectives or tenses. Again, we’ll see, and I’ll make a decision tomorrow when I actually start writing. Once I start writing, I will stick with whatever I go with until the bitter end, and see what happens. Sounds like fun, non? Of course it does.

I’m half-tempted to work on a story I’ve been working on off and on since school, but I kind of feel doing that would be “cheating” somewhat. While I’m very fond of said story and the characters involved, I do kind of want to do it justice whenever I get around to actually finishing it, whatever medium I end up completing it in. (There’s a distinct possibility it will become a game rather than a book, for example.) Not that spending a solid month of churning out 2,000-ish words a day isn’t “doing it justice,” but I sort of feel like I want to do that without the added time pressure — not to mention the fact that there’s already 17,000 words of it that I’m rather pleased with on my Google Drive that I don’t really want to abandon and start again.

Anyway. I’m rambling in an attempt to fill space and do something prior to dinner being ready. Hopefully dinner will be ready soon so I can spare you further inane ramblings, and you can enjoy (or be subjected to, depending on your outlook) the fruits of my creative labours over the course of the next month. Either way, thanks for reading.

Oyasumi nasai!