Rants Vs NaNoWriMo and Small Towns

Well it's freakin' December. How the feck did that happen? One minute it's Halloween and I'm dressed as a geisha witch, and the next its perfume adverts and people getting gooey over the John Lewis advert and far too many renditions of jingle bells for one lifetime. So what happened in between?

Ah, it was that pesky NaNoWriMo, and for those of you thinking this is the wordiest acronym ever - you'd be right - it stands for National Novel Writing Month, the object being to challenge yourself to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Crazy right? Yeah. I did it!

You do tend to feel like you bypassed a month of everyone else's year, like November somehow didn't exist for you because you were in another world, your fictional world and therefore it shouldn't count. 

Keeping up with social media and friends was tricky but doable. But going out to work or study became more inconvenient than ever. What happens when you're in the throes of an amazing scene and then you have to leave the house, or your train journey ends, or someone wants to talk to you? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It does give you a strange discipline and a weird feeling of control. Knowing that you have a deadline is a thing most unpublished writers - like myself - don't tend to adhere to, so this is a great grounding for working up to a deadline and the art of doing a bit each day, no matter whether it is 100 words or 4000 words. The point is that you're making progress day by day and that it is all adding to the bigger picture.

It also makes you realise what you can achieve in a short amount of time, whilst also working/studying/living. You don't have to give up everything, you just have to get up a little earlier, or write in your lunch break, or write late at night, or for that hour in between teaching jobs. Stolen moments here and there can produce a few hundred words and set you up nicely for the next scene.

For instance, during NaNoWriMo:

I attended Stream, the first South London Book Festival. I took my laptop with me and wrote over a 1000 words in between two panels.

I wrote 2 blogs on my rantsofabitternortherner blog.

I read 7 books.

I went to a dinner party and a Sunday lunch all in the same weekend.

I spent two nights babysitting.

I travelled up to Nottingham to stay with some friends, writing on both my train journey there and back.

And I spent two days away in Basel, Switzerland for my tenth anniversary with my partner A.

And in the whole month there was only one day where I did no words at all.

So really, you can still live and work and play and travel and blog and eat and maybe even get a bit of sleep, you can earn money and write a complete novel in a month. I know it because I've done it along with thousands of other people around the world. Congratulations to everyone who took part. I know it's made me a better writer for it. And it is the completion of my fourth YA novel, which is a hefty achievement.

It's definitely something I would do again, though I do have a couple of quibbles. Why November? It is a month with only 30 days. A month with 31 would be even better. And also it gives you that kind of blackout feeling, like you lost a month somewhere, which on the lead up to Christmas and the end of the year is quite shocking, because you go to sleep on Halloween night and wake up on the 1st December with your advent calendar gleaming. But you do have a 50000 word novel too. My main issue was fitting in runs/workouts, but I think that's probably a bit of laziness on my part. Still, it's nice to have a reason/something to blame. Oh yeah, I put on a bit of weight, but I wrote a novel in a month so deal with the love handles, alright!

Okay, backtracking slightly, I have an issue when we go away for a weekend break to a small town/city in Europe, though it can happen on our longer holidays in the States as well. I don't know if anyone else experiences the same thing, especially if you're from London, but it goes something like this:

*clears throat* You arrive at your destination, probably having flown Ryanair and having picked the destination because of the proximity of the airport to the city centre/town centre. You make your way to the accommodation, and if you're anything like us you will have booked a cute flat on air bnb with cooking facilities because let's face it it's a month before Christmas and Switzerland is expensive. So you arrive there and the very nice artsy lady who owns the flat shows you in and tells you it's very small and we say that's fine we have a small flat in London. And then here it comes:

You have come from London? Why?

Er. Why do you go anywhere? To travel. To see new things. Because it's cheap to get to. Because there's a Christmas Market. Because we haven't been there before. Etc. Etc. I don't think I need to go on.

And then you get the classic: It's very small compared to London.

No. Really? And I thought every city was just as big. Oh My God. I hate that so much. We live in London and we know how big it is, sometimes it's nice to escape somewhere smaller, or just to experience something different. I know I'm an ignorant Brit at times, but I am aware that London is a freakin' massive City. I do not expect nor want every place I visit to be on the same scale. I visit smaller places for a different feel but also to do as much as you can in a short break. If everywhere was as big as London, you would have to go for a month to get anything out of it. It's crazy. And it bugs the freakin' life out of me. As you may have gathered.

We get it sometimes in the States as well, but that tends to be pure disbelief when we visit smaller cities/towns, because they see London as so far away and so different that they can't imagine why people would want to visit. But in everything, variety is key. And going somewhere different and doing something different is the whole point of holidays and travelling. To get out there and do something new and meet new people and try new food and explore cultures and traditions that are different to your own, and to eat massive sausages at Christmas markets. Mmmmm. Bratwurst. 

I digress. 

Anyhoo. NaNoWriMo done. Small towns covered. I think it's time to go. 

Rants