I really wanted to take part in NaNoWriMo this year. For those who’ve never heard of it, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and involves writing 50k of fiction in a month.It’s not quite a novel, more a novella size.
Now, I’ve written fiction for years and always have lots of ideas for stories but I’ve never really ever written more than a few pages of anything. I usually just lose interest or become highly critical of my work. As a result, nothing gets done. So Nano which is more about quantity than quality is the ultimate in losing your creative writing inhibitions.
When I interviewed Rachel Herron for KnitCast in March this year we spoke extensively about Nano and I said that I’d meant to do it one year and I think I even committed to doing it this year.
So, why aren’t I doing it? Well, writing 50k of words over 30 days even if you’re not getting caught up in editing them is a big commitment when you have other things that you also need to get done. I’ve been organising my house since last month, sorting things and getting rid of stuff that I don’t want or need anymore. Since I moved some years ago from a three storey house to a smaller one I’ve simply had too much stuff and I’ve not been able to enjoy my house or have people ’round because it’s been too full of stuff.
My craft room was finished this month and it’s been an amazing feeling just to go in there without having to clamber over loads of junk. My walk-in-wardrobe aka the box room is now nearly done – about 8 bin bags full of stuff for charity from that room alone – then it’s onto the bedroom and then the rest of the house. So I want/need to keep that momentum going so that it’ll be done before Christmas and so that I can actually enjoy my home instead of being annoyed at not being able to find things/get into rooms/not have friends over/not be able to relax because of the mess etc.
So this month I will take part in Nanoroomo whereby I commit to finishing tidying my house by the end of November. This will be quite a challenge since one of the rooms, my study, is quite bad indeed. It’s not got boxes up to the ceiling as my craft room did but it’s still quite full. I think you’ll understand that I can’t do that and take part in Nanowrimo as well. It still doesn’t stop me wishing that I could do it this year especially since my friend Shalene in London is doing it as well.
So, November will be busy and I’m afraid that there’s no KnitCast for the month either. I went to the dentist with toothache last week and it turns out that the root of my teeth is infected and needs to be removed. I’ve been dosed up on antibiotics and painkillers and couldn’t combine that with editing the podcast. I need to be in full health for that since it’s a lot of work. But the tooth should be removed sometime this week and then I can get back to working on the house and everything else. And then next year I will be doing NaNoWriMo! 🙂