Some Of You Might Be New Around Here,

Around this time of year I normally do a Facebook post to say ‘hell, it’s about to get crazy up in here’ but since I have been devoting so much time to the blog - yeah, I know, it’s about damn time and it’s still not really been the time that it needs or deserves - I figured I would do it here and then link it, because why not?

What’s happening? It’s nearly November so it’s nearly time for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. 

What does that mean? It means writers are going to go a little bit mad trying to write fifty thousand words (or more) in a month. 

Is that wise? No, of course not. But it is fun. I think.

I’ve been taking part in NaNoWriMo since I was sixteen years old and only took one year off because of my dissertation. Yeah, it wasn’t a great year anyway, but anyone who remembers me back then will remember a more grumpy, more pissy, more depressed version of me that was missing my favourite event of the year. Yes there was plenty else on my mind, not least the dissertation and the FEAR of what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life, but missing NaNoWriMo was a big, big factor.

So, what does it mean? It means your friend neighbourhood writers, like me, are going to be a little (more) on edge (than usual), a little (okay, a lot) more strung out on caffeine than usual and we’re probably going to do some things that the general population of the world find “odd”. We might be more likely to cancel plans because we’re spending time with our laptops, we might need our writer friends a bit more than we need other people we usually turn to, and those friends might be people we just met recently who are also going through the NaNoWriMo experience, journey, Hunger Games experience…? If writing isn’t your thing, that’s fine, but I would advise that at the very least, if you’re not willing to take on the mantel of Tea Bitch and bring tea and sandwiches at regular intervals (easiest way to a WriMos heart is taking the responsibility for their own sustenance out of their hands, generally) at least stay out of the way and don’t expect too much in the way of conversation outside of how is the novel going and the response being a positive or negative sounding grunt of some description. 

Speaking of conversation which centres around how the novel is going, expect a lot of numerical references to how it’s going. Possibly. If it’s going badly that might not happen but it doesn’t mean that a lack of numbers means it’s going badly. 

The fundamentals of this yearly message are what they are always are. Be nice to your writers and if you don’t hear from them for the month, don’t hold it against them (or me) because we’re kind of focused on other things.