Posted on December 3, 2012

It’s been just over a month (well obviously) since I last posted on this page, outlining my earnest intentions of finally getting my shit together and writing THAT best-selling story.

Now I feel duty-bound to let you, dear reader – whose existence still comes into question – know how I got on.

In short… it was a short story. A novella even. But, quite emphatically, a far cry from the “epic masterpiece” which was evidently expected to be lurking inside every participant, judging by the excitable and hyperbole-happy home page, and ecstatic bragging of how awesomely high a word-count they’ve reached in so little time already.

If not skeptical, well not all the time, I was, admittedly, utterly green with envy; more than a lot of people, I always wished, and even slightly expected, for my inner wordsmith to come leaping out of somewhere buried deep within me and proudly onto the page (or the screen).

Also, of course, I had my fiance (who isn’t exactly unburdened with concerns of his own), egging me on to keep at it day in and day out, and not to be satisfied with the measly word-counts which I was about ready to concede to, after a good while wracking my poor under-equipped brain and coming up with little more than vague snippets of potential storyline.

The end result; it held together, but barely. I probably could have written something far more indepth and captivating, but I didn’t feel I could do any better at the time.

However, they say that it’s the whole “mind experiment” aspect of the competition that matters more than anything. I came up with… something. A something which I may well not have written, it’s likely, had Nanowrimo not been brought to my attention at such short notice.

For those who wrote an epic novel worthy of being rated alongside the Lord of the Rings trilogy; well done. Genuinely. For those who simply wrote for the hell of it, and used Nanowrimo as an excuse as good as any to ignore everything else in life under the  belief – or the delusion – that they can write a masterpiece, but didn’t even come close, but had fun writing anyway; again, well done.

Writing is rarely a bad thing. When it is, well that’s another story.