I’m considering defecting.
With November very much nigh, the annual torment / glee / disaster / panic / joy that is NaNoWriMo is upon us once again. I am, yet again, taking part. This will be year five, my first year in Glasgow and it was – initially – a chance to meet some more people in this sprawling – yet insular – city. Continue reading
I found a website.
I used it to analyse a few things I’ve written, both factual and fiction. Apparently my writing is a cross between Dan Brown and H.P. Lovecraft.
The strangest thing, however, it it was my factual writing which gave me the H.P. Lovecraft comparison.
..and reports are coming in that Cthulhu has been spotted in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street looking for the souls of innocents to fill his belly. Eyewitnesses say that he’s looking hungry and disappointed at the lack of suitable nourishment.
It’s only the 29th, the story isn’t finished but oh yeah!
The story so far:
In 2006 I tried to do NaNoWriMo. I did it without going to any meetings, without having any plot, characters or anything more than a deluded sense of literary grandiose. I failed.
In 2007 I tried to do NaNoWriMo. I went to one, maybe two, meetings, I had no plot but I had a pair of half-formed characters. I tried to tell the same story twice. I failed.
In 2008 I tried to do NaNoWriMo. I went to a metric shit tonne of meetings. I drank an equal volume of white wine. I had something resembling a plot and a whole cast of stereotypical characters. I won. There was much joyousness and a little bit more wine.
In 2009 I am trying again because I am a glutton for punishment. I have two half-formed characters and I know I need to flesh out another three or four. I have a start of a plot, but I still need to work out where it’s going and how it’s getting there. I have a list of things to research for accuracy’s sake as this year I’m heading down the dangerous road of historical YA [okay, it's East/West/the no man's land between Berlin in the 70s, but it needs to have some accuracy otherwise it's pointless setting it in a real time and place]. I have all that to do, but I have almost two weeks before kick off and I’ve got the most important thing: a shiny new web badge.
