Why Would You Want To Keep Them,

 A few days ago the somewhat inevitable news that NaNoWriMo was going to go down was given and honestly, it's been a bit difficult to sort through the feelings that have come up in the wake of that. It's one thing to know that it exists still, but it's not what it was, but it's something else entirely to think of it being gone for good... 

I spoke to friends and we discussed that the grieving process started for a lot of us way back in 2023, for some even longer ago than that, but this has something of a finality to it. Instead of waiting for someone to steer the ship back onto course, we have to accept that it's gone and it likely will never be seen again. When I didn't take part in anything resembling NaNoWriMo in 2024 I expected that it was unlikely I would ever visit my NaNo account again, but today I decided that there was still a reason to go back, and it was better to do it sooner rather than later rather than potentially miss the chance. 

What I wanted to keep was the record of what I had written and when. I wanted to keep the records of things that I had tried, things I had written and the graphs that came with them, because there were some pretty amazing achievements in there.

Granted, I hope the memory of finishing in 5 days and smashing the Staples 'Easy' button, to make it say 'That was easy' in the middle of the cafe in a bookstore (I think it was a Waterstone's) and saying 'no, it f-ing wasn't', or the many crazy memories of the All Night Lock In, whether it was in The Big Green Bookstore or the different Scout sites we used later, or the awesome friends I made through NaNoWriMo, or that trip to San Fransisco... 

But yes, I went back to screen grab some of the good memories, and maybe it was a way for me to say goodbye and accept that it's over. Maybe. 

What Happens Now?

As NaNoWriMo23 comes to a close, I'm realising how weird it is that I've spent the month writing, but without recording it on the NaNo site and actually it was only when it was 'over' and I had finished the fifty thousand words that NaNo requires that I actually started writing the sequel I have been trying to write for a long time and it was probably the best thing I've tried to write for a long time. I thought it was going to be harder to let go of the whole of NaNo if that was what it came to, but what I have realised in the last few days has been that even though this has been the last fourteen years of my life, if it no longer fits it's okay to put it down and focus on the things which do. It's not like I'm resigning my typewriter to the scrap pile or trying to figure out being happy without writing (never works, or not for long anyway) or even like I'm giving up on something that puts on its boots only to kick them square up my butt to get me writing - metaphorically, of course.

Whilst saying goodbye to NaNoWriMo is not a certainty at the moment - it's going to depend on a few things - I definitely don't feel as distraught as I would have expected to and whilst that's strange, it is a very welcome thing. Although I did manage to let go of some things with NaNoWriMo what I will say is that this blog was typed during the mad dash before midnight which happens to have been my favourite part of NaNo each year and has been the sort of thing that was either the mad sprint to finish or the period where I tried to write enough to mirror what I had done on the first day (nailed it, just saying) and I have previously had a bottle of Prosecco in the house so that I could pop the cork and have a glass at midnight to celebrate it's over. I'm tempted to do that now, but at the same time I think I should leave it until the finish of the draft of the sequel. (Though I have a few bottles so there's nothing to stop me from having a glass tonight and then a glass from another bottle when the draft is finished. It would have to be different bottles because it's not going to be done in the next few days!)

Anyway, yes, NaNoWriMo is over and I am glad that the pressure is off of the whole thing, but at the same time, I can't wait for a conclusion to the whole thing to happen. The whole thing really does feel like a sword of Damacles over the head of the organisation, the community, and the whole damn thing. I hate it because it doesn't feel real and it doesn't feel like something that ever should have happened (obviously) and, in the strange way that NaNoWriMo counts things, we've not even quite reached 25 years for the organisation. If all we ever get to be is an organisation who had an amazing idea and wanted to bring together writers young and old, I hope the legacy looks like what we wanted it to, but if it doesn't, I hope that those of us who remember the best parts of it are able to look back and remember the best of it fondly. I know there are a lot of things that I will remember fondly, particularly getting to meet Chris Baty and discussing everything from the start of NaNoWriMo to his trip to Brighton and London, the trip to San Francisco and getting to meet some of the other Over Achievers in person and so many Municipal Liaisons, and most especially the train trip. And only in part because of getting to cuddle a puppy husky who was only about six weeks old and the most gorgeous little thing I had ever seen (to date, because I hadn't met Chai then.) And of course there will always be the write ins at KRO in Manchester before I left, my first year at university when the Manchester group called me and shouted 'We love you, Charlie' down the phone when my heart was breaking from missing home so much and I couldn't get the train back to Manchester to spend all of my time with them or to attend all of the events that the region were throwing. There were all of those All Night Lock Ins - the good, the bad and the online - train trips to Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton and then also the NaNoRillas where we explored more of London that some of us ever did alone. These memories might end up being all that is left, but if they are, then I guess it is a pretty great legacy. 

I guess the question is then, if I wrote this the night of the 30th November into 1st December, why has it taken me until now to post, because clearly I'm not doing what I was doing at the end of October where I was writing a few blogs in one day and scheduling them to go up one per day? Well, the answer is because a few things have still been hitting the fan with NaNoWriMo that are making me question whether what I have already done to step back are enough or whether I need to follow suit from what a few people (many of whom are former MLs or other long time supporters of the organisation) have already made the decision to do and make the decision to delete my account entirely. One of the things that makes me really reluctant to do that is that I don't want to lose the data and I have a really bad history with losing data, particularly when it is emotionally valuable to me. I also can't imagine getting to November next year and NOT going through all of my NaNoWriMo rituals and spending at least the first few days of the month seeing what taking things to the extremes can do (trying to write 50K in the least time possible is definitely taking things to the extremes) and taking it as an opportunity - if I need it - to recommit myself to writing when I've fallen off of the wagon a bit. Even if that's not done sitting under the NaNo banner, which this year wasn't really, it's always going to be connected to NaNo because that's where it comes from and the history is important to me. 

Decisions haven't been made yet by the board, or at least not announced yet, and I guess that I am still hoping that the right decisions are made that mean that the ship doesn't sink and we can keep NaNoWriMo or at least have a new and improved version as close to the original as humanly possible. I don't want to lose the good parts of what we have in NaNoWriMo, and I'm holding out hope that it can be saved, but maybe that is being unrealistically optimistic, and I just need to accept that it's time to walk away from any association with it. At the moment, I'm still sitting on the fence getting a splintery ass rather than making a decision one way or the other.

Since I wrote all of the above there has been a little bit more from the board, but it's not really been decisions other than bringing in a consultant... A few people have made the really big decision to leave, and honestly, I can't blame them, and I think it's going to continue to feel like a sinking ship until there is a good, solid outcome - like a change of personnel or really solid consequences for the things that happened and a lot of changes in certain areas that have been highlighted a number of times, or the majority of the community leaves, whether we have a new home or not. 

I Wrote About The Afterlife, But I Never Really Lived More Than An Hour,

Firstly, let me say that that statement is categorically untrue, but I have become more than a little obsessed with Fall Out Boy over the last couple of weeks (I've somehow been worse since the gig, which doesn't normally happen) so there are a few lyrics that I have been singing a lot, and the original version of that has definitely been in the mix a few times (it's from Saturday, for anyone even slightly less obsessed than I am) and I thought it would make a good blog title. Or a tattoo, but since I don't have any tattoos and equally don't have any plans to change that, the blog title will have to do. 

With everything that has been going on I've been thinking a lot about writing. I guess that with everything going on with NaNo it's had me reflecting on how much of an impact it really had on me, given that until the first year of NaNo I had never actually written a full novel. And actually, it took me until 8 months after the finish of my first NaNo to achieve that feat, but it's been an incredible learning curve all the same. It's not always been easy. There have been plenty of times where NaNo has made me feel pretty ill. NaNoFlu kicked my ass more than freshers flu did, partly because I've had it far more often. And then there was what happened seven years ago.

Seven years ago I was writing something that I loved, that I was proud of, something that I finished on Day 9 and then tragedy struck. I am pretty sure that it was my first 20k day (I checked, it was), the year we went to Brighton, and it was then the year that my computer ate my novel, and honestly, I never forgave it. I know it was my fault for not backing the damn thing up, but it was a busy just over a week, and I thought my computer had it. I didn't click save when I shut the laptop, the battery died and cleared the temp files and when I turned it back on the file was corrupted, the novel was gone and there was nothing that any of my IT inclined friends could do to bring it back, and I was heart broken. I still have the files on my computer, but I don't know why. One of those people had run it through every recovery program that they could think of, and it was well and truly gone.

Since that happened, I haven't really been able to put the same effort into a novel that I did into that one. It felt like a little bit of my love for writing died that day, and honestly, it has taken until now or recently at least, for me to think about writing the same way again, because I want to write a sequel to Fairies and I want to love it as much as I love that book. I don't know if that is going to happen, but I would like it to. 

It's not just the writing, is the thing. What I remember about Fairies is that I spent a long time editing that book, and went over it and over it and over it, and then after I self-published it, needed to pull it and then do another edit on it, because something had gone wrong even after I went over it, edited it and had beta readers go over it, too. I think that, subconsciously, I knew that throwing that much energy into writing something and then editing it, and potentially losing it even if through my own idiocy, was far more than I could cope with at the time. I mean, one of the reasons I never considered applying or querying to the 'traditional' publishing route was because I was terrified of being rejected from it, and I know that it's highly likely to happen, because pretty much everyone gets rejected (at least once or twice, but more often a lot more times than that). 

Anyway, the fact that I have been thinking about writing in this way is really positive, or at least I think it is, and maybe it means that one of the novels I have been drafting for the last few years (including a redraft of the one that got deleted or corrupted or however you want to say it) is actually going to see the light of day at some point. Maybe. 

What Is Happening With NaNo?

 Right, so without rehashing all of the details of what has already been shared on so many different platforms now, I want to talk about what is going on with NaNoWriMo, why it's important and why it sucks.

Once a time, in what was actually a different century, way back in 1999, twenty one writers decided to do something a little bit crazy and try to write fifty thousand words (the industry standard minimum length for a novel) in a month. I was going to write 'in thirty days' but I want to say the original one happened in July, so it wouldn't have been thirty days!

From humble beginnings it became something incredible, because it spread across the globe, with participants in a number of different languages, with forums and somewhere in the last 25 years, the Young Writer's Program was born, and the program started support, well, young writers. You have to be 13 to be on the forums, or to have an account which doesn't have your parent's email address on it, but you can job younger, particularly if your teacher or another educator is running a program to help get young people writing. You can also access the main forums from age 13 as well, where young writers can ask question of, less young writers, or can just discuss life, the universe and anything else. 

Somewhere along the way, because of a number of different reasons, the forums have become a problem both on the 'main' site and also on the YWP and there are a lot of details to that, and it's shit, because these spaces are a refuge for many of us, a haven for many of us, and they have been the space where we are social, where we find our answers and where we find our friends. These spaces are sacred in a way, but right now, they're locked, and that is the way that they should stay until they can be managed safely.

Writers are a lot like other artists; they're strong but they're also really fragile. There's been trauma dumping going on in the forums which is difficult enough for an international group of adults, but when it happens in the children's space and kids are feeling the pressure of supporting other people, particularly their friends through significant mental health issues, something is going wrong. When users of a forum can't rely on the people there to protect them, even when it's from each other, there is a major problem. Some of the issues have been so significant that they have required reporting to law enforcement and that's a really sticky situation, because of the international nature of the group.

I don't think anyone ever imagined, back in 1999 that we would reach a peak of 400,000 people (I think that was during COVID) and still be around 350,000 people today. Well, we were before these issues became so universally known. The impact of that change and the global reach of the website have made this project a lot more complicated than could have been anticipated back then, and another accusation that has been banded about over the last few years particularly, is that the projects are still very much America-centric. For a number of us, that is categorically true. Participation is possible, but different for international people. When I flew to America in 2018 because of NaNoWriMo I was one of two people who had flown over and the other lady was from Germany. Everyone else was from somewhere in America (except for one of the staff who was from Canada). Now I know that's a least in part because it was an utter privilege to be able to do it, but at the same time, it's the biggest event of NaNoWriMo and there wasn't really anything like virtual participation. I'm not sure what the answer is for something like that, but being focused mostly on America is a problem, particularly when it comes to fundraising. 

One of the big reasons that this is so bad is because NaNo has been hanging on by a thread for a long time. Things that were planned upgrades for the sites weren't able to happen because there was just no budget. The organisation does have sponsors, but the majority of the operating budget is from donations and those donations have a long way to stretch. They fund the websites, the forums, the staff, the packs sent to schools which support YWP as well as the gifts given to MLs (regional leads) to say thank you for their support, as well as the stickers that are sent to regions with MLs for participants. There are designers to pay, tech support and so much more. Anything which affects public opinion of the organisation, like the accusations that have been made, always impacts the financial contributions that are received by the organisation and the capacity to recover from that is going to be stretched because there wasn't a lot of buffer anyway.

The worse part, even than the money because we have worked with less, is that the trust in the organisation could be shattered beyond repair. If things aren't resolved for the YWP, those young people might be lost from the organisation for good, and if adults manage to replace what the organisation gives them with something else, then the entire community that has been built could be slashed to bits, and actually it looks like it is happening, or it is very close to happening. 

Having been part of this since I was 16, I know how important the organisation has always been to me, but I also know that keeping it is not an at all costs thing, and that has only really come about because of the fact that losing it has been a very real possibility in the last few weeks. Without it being the safe space that it should be for everyone, it doesn't have anything like the same value. We're working with the forums shut down and honestly it's fragmented the community more than destroyed it, but I guess that's a kind of destruction. 

Now That's Done,

 When NaNoWriMo wasn't quite here this year I was thinking, I know what I want to write. I want to re-write a novel I have been drafting and redrafting for quite a while and I'm still not happy with and then I also want another crack at drafting Butterflies (yes, the sequel to Fairies). In the end, I have started on neither. 

I started drafting something that I thought was going to be really cool and then it just kind of drifted off until I got bored and then the second was another redraft of something I've been trying to write for a while and getting nowhere with. It's a whole world I've been kind of living in for a while, stewing in because I enjoy it, but I've still not quite found where the story is in it at the moment, and that hasn't changed right now.

Anyway, today, on Day 8, partly with the help of the 4 The Words Multiplayer mode and partly because I was having a rare and lovely dopamine day, so I hammered through the last eight or so thousand words I needed to write and came to the end, but maybe that means that I can write what I want to now, because I don't need to be thinking about word count as much, though I am still thinking about getting through the quests I want to in 4 The Words, which is a good because if it keeps me writing then that would be amazing.

As much as the pressure of NaNoWriMo can be excellent, but I think it has also squashed my head a little bit. I have felt guilt about not writing like I haven't felt since, well, since last November. It hurts my head to be looking at the screen for as long as I've needed to in order to finish this quickly. It's hurt my hands, because it's gotten so cold recently and even when I put the heating on for an hour it doesn't make it feel warm enough for the amount of exercise my fingers get. 

I think this is getting ramble again because I do actually have a really bad headache, I'm looking forward to going to Starbucks tomorrow for my Eggnog Latte reward, and I'm considering getting the very patient shih tzu a steak to celebrate having done the worst of it. 

It's Like November Started And You Forgot What The Blog Was,

I was going to say that November started much like any other November, but that would be a total fib.

Every other November I have ever participated in NaNoWriMo has begun with a really bad pizza - because once it's a tradition, it's a tradition, even if it sucks - and either napping or waiting up for midnight to get in those precious words just after midnight so that you start the month right. It used to be a couple of hundred words, but developed into I had to write a thousand words before  bed, or I needed to get to first day par (1,667 words) before bed. I have never, and once upon a time had thought I would never, go out on Hallowe'en night, let alone to a concert in another city, before the start of NaNoWriMo, because that sort of thing is craziness. NaNoWriMo is the most important thing for me when it comes to November. It has been since I first found out about NaNo from one of my online writing buddies, Fong.

This year, seeing Fall Out Boy live again, no matter when, no matter where, was the most important. I was praying that they were going to play their cover of We Didn't Start The Fire, but they didn't. I struggled for weeks to get a ticket and then one came up in Birmingham for Hallowe'en night and I just jumped on it. I didn't think of the consequences much before I bought the ticket and when I had bought it I only thought about the fact that if I had a camper van already - it's more of a long term goal than that sadly - I would just hunker down and start NaNo in a different city and drive home when I was happy with my word count. Let's face it, I would have been thinking I was going to basically live in Birmingham for a few days. As it was, the gig was going to finish at about 11 and I was going to drive straight home after getting out of the multi-storey car park, and that would mean I was home by about one. Maybe half one, but probably one.

During the gig I made a few friends as I so often do, and then I then found out a few of them were going to struggle to get home, so I offered to drive them. The result of that was I didn't get the Burger King that I was craving - not really a massive loss, I guess - and I didn't get home until about 4 in the morning. I got in, made a brew and then I don't really remember where I was when I started writing, whether I was sitting on my sofa or if I got straight into bed and started writing, but I did one of the two having skilfully resisted the urge to sit in a motorway service station and write because I was feeling a little lost from myself by not doing. 

- 

It's weird, because I wrote for a few hours, I updated my word count and then I tried to sleep, and I think I was overcaffienated, because I had needed to get home, and that meant motorway driving and it can be so boring that I am tempted to nod off, so I needed proper coffee, but then it meant that I couldn't sleep. When I did eventually sleep, that took another bite of time out of the day. I spent the rest of the day doing what I call fannying around, because I don't even really remember what I was doing, but I wasn't writing and I should have been. 

I spent the first couple of days thinking that it was going to get better but I've noticed my word count is plummeting and as a proud member of The Overachievers I'm really struggling to accept that. I'm battling with the idea of, no, not even the idea of but the fact that my ADHD is affecting me far more than it ever has before and it's actually not my NaNoWriMo super power right now, it's the greatest barrier to me actually being able to succeed.

It's not helped by the fact there are some big things going on in NaNoWrimo, and they're not all positive. Areas that have always felt so safe are no longer feeling that way, and a place I have wanted to find a way back into for a while has given me a way back in, but sadly it's not a positive way in, and I'm feeling completely overwhelmed by what is happening to an organisation I used to love. It's so hard to love it the same way at the moment and that feeling of detachment is just compounding all of the things I was already struggling with. 

I'm still here, I'm still writing and that's not going to stop any time soon, but I'm not going to finish today and it might not even be tomorrow, but it'll happen, and hopefully it will get easier soon. 

There Are Literally Files,

 On my computer called sh1t and nonsense. One called one, one called the other. And the reason? Because it's NaNoWriMo and my energy is meant to be focused on writing and not on naming files, but I am still, more than six months later, getting used to using this laptop and I'm still, six months later, having to check shortcuts for things like screen shots, and I'm still struggling to toggle between things, so I have a couple of dump files (files where I literally copy and paste everything into) on my computer that were always opened and never saved (risky, I know) and they were occupying Pages, so I was writing everything that wasn't on 4thewords (where there are also dump files but at least they are named) in Notes. Notes doesn't have a word counter, so adding my word count was annoying because it was copy and paste into 4TW to fight the monsters and then also have to copy any paste EVERYTHING, because I wouldn't be me if I wasn't working on a couple of projects at once during NaNo, to count the words so I have an official total. 

And then I got irritated so saved one file as sh1t and one as nonsense and then I could have a brand new dump file for NaNo, which is still not the easiest thing, because I still have to copy and paste everything into it unless I start working directly from it, but I have a sum total word count without having to try and get to the tab that has the word counter on it. 

Also, it's NaNo, formatting has gone out of the window. So has sleep. 

In terms of word count, well, it's going. I'm planning on actually writing a proper blog at the moment, but this should give you an indication of how well I'm able to string a sentence together about what is going on. 

Being Somewhat Irritated At The Stupidity of Social Media,

Finding out two days before NaNoWriMo that Facebook stories don’t really “do” links that are clickable is more than irritating considering the fact that it appears either a decent proportion of the international WriMo community (if unfamiliar, see previous blog) seems to have evacuated Twitter (I’m not calling it by a letter, it’s stupid) and many haven’t arrived on BlueSky yet (yes, I know it’s invite only, because it’s still being built and yada yada yada - I don’t have to be logical and reasonable when I’m having a moan about something, okay?). 

You might be wondering why it matters. Well, it doesn’t, I guess. Except that it does… I’ve been a part of the NaNo community for a long time, have done really stupid things (great things, really great things!) like fly over to San Fransisco for the last Night of Writing Dangerously because I couldn’t square it with myself to let the idea of never going sit right - I just couldn’t. I also went from thinking, who are these mad people who finish NaNo in a week and I can’t write five thousand words in a day to doing my first 10K day, then having three in a month and then finishing in four days (secret: no sleep, lots of caffeine, and being a considerable chunk younger than I am, and currently feel) so during NaNoWriMo and Preptober, I write a lot about each, and people actually read it. People don’t just read it in - oh God I’m using a phrase from work that I hate, but whatever - penny numbers like they do over the rest of the year, a lot of people read it, probably because it’s a lot more focused - you could say hyper focused, if you wanted to… - and the people reading it are interested in NaNo. 

Unfortunately though, as much as you can Google blogs about NaNo or whatever and I would come up SOMEWHERE (no, I haven’t Googled myself to see where and no, I’m not going to even just for poops and giggles) most of that “traffic” has been generated through Twitter, and my Instagram page, but for reasons I don’t feel the need to go into here, my Instagram page is currently (and for the foreseeable future) set to private because of something which happened that just made me feel a bit uncomfortable about it being open access. 

Now, whilst the blog is and always has been something I write more for myself than anything, I won’t lie, it is exciting to see the readership of it grow during November. It is the sort of thing I enjoy as part of NaNoWriMo, partly because writing blogs can be a good way to get some words in that aren’t focused on the novel and my family have always said a change is as good as a rest (this is BS, do not believe it! Rest is always best!) so swapping out of novelling mode can be good for a bit to just give myself a little time to not need to be thinking about what happened next. (I’ve said before that I don’t write novels so much as incident reports of what happened when the characters wandered off, so those kind of periods of only passively engaging with whatever project I’m writing are hugely beneficial). With the forums appearing to have depended into a literal dumpster fire at this stage, and the fact they’re not something I’ve ever really had too much engagement with since we moved to the new site (I know, it’s really not new anymore and I can’t even remember what year it was we last moved) and all the changes going on in social media at the moment (whether you think people are abandoning Twitter or people who don’t pay for Twitter services are just getting little to no visibility) it feels like a massive loss of community, even more so than COVID was and because of being an American run organisation with a global reach, we kept REALLY tight restrictions for a very long time, even when individual countries would have allowed our events to go ahead (not challenging that decision by the way, I think it was the right decision to put everyone into a similar or the same boat. 

Given how stressful NaNoWriMo can be and the fact it can feel somewhat triggering for some people’s mental health for a number of reasons, I find it really challenging to accept the loss of community that seems to be happening, and whilst there are still a number of tools like Discord, and in person write ins are back to happening, that’s just the way it feels for me at the moment. We’re also having to accept that changes in venue spaces (I’m thinking particularly in the UK at the moment, though I appreciate it may be replicated elsewhere) accommodating events like we used to has become harder and without compromise, local writing events may not be possible anymore. Pubs that used to reserve a back room space for no deposit want something like ten to fifteen pounds per head deposit and when you’re taking about any major city that gets pricey fast. Lots of places are closing down, and with the way that prices are going up, a lot of writers, particularly the young studenty types, the very young relying on their parents type, or the broke writers trying to make money from their art and self-expression types are stuck in a position where they can’t really afford to attend some of the venues that are possible to use. But despite all of that mess, NaNo is nearly here, and it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be messy and weird and not everything is going to plan, but like Chris Bay and the founders did back in 1999, we’ll find a way. Because we always find a way, eventually.

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. 

Confessions,

When I first started thinking about this blog post, the scene from Moulin Rouge (didn't try to spell it as Mulan, didn't) where Ziegler (I had to Google that I was getting the character right and have realised I should always back myself, because I was right!) is trying to cover for (it's not Renee Zelweigger) Nicole Kidman's character for being ill, and yells, "SHE'S CONFESSING!", popped into my head and made me both inwardly groan and also made me laugh, because the connections my mind makes with words entertains me but at the same time, why am I so weird?

Sometimes this little blog feels like my confessional and I'm not sure that that's always a good thing, but there we go. 

The thing I'm going to confess right now though is that, due to struggling a lot with being able to plan when to get things done and find the energy and motivation to do so, so I've been trying my best to write when I have the inclination, motivation and most importantly the time, and then I schedule them to be posted later. It's a bit lazy, but hey, that's life. It's a coping mechanism and I need it. 

The more we move into a social media age, the more there is an expectation of access, and a want for things like a schedule for when we do things, and it's one of the things I really struggle with. When I was a Twitter sprint lead, things would come up and I would be completely time blind and then realise that my shift was supposed to be a few hours ago or was supposed to start thirty minutes ago and obviously at that stage there was nothing I could do about it, so whilst I would love to be able to do more things in the NaNo community which are kind of 'live', I also find it a really difficult commitment because I don't want to let people down and I know I screw up sometimes. Even before my diagnosis I was pretty intensely aware of my faults, or the impact that 'whatever' as I thought of it as then had on me.

As I was thinking my way through this post, and it was another that was sort of shouted at the voice notes on my phone by way of a first draft, I realised that it's not uncommon to schedule things like content, but it blogs, videos and such like, and actually, it's a really useful way of being able to utilise the down time we all need and the switch off we all need. I know that social media is highly likely to be having some form of impact on my mental health at the moment and whilst it's not the only reason I am having panic attacks, it definitely isn't helping. I also know that this blog gets a lot more readership throughout NaNoWriMo, for obvious reasons, and that social media is one of the ways I promote it. Whilst this is never going to be something I do for my actual job, or anything like that, I think it would be really misguided to completely go offline like I may wish to do during the month that I write the most about, so this whole scheduling thing has another benefit of actually giving me some breathing space if I need or want it. (Though that does take a level of forward planning I'm not sure I'm quite up to given the amount of other things I need to do during November and plan for before NaNo starts... )

Certain Things Make Me Happy,

 This is a bit of a stupid one so I'm not even sure that it's going to get posted, but I'm enjoying writing some daft things at the moment, and also I'm battling a monster on 4thewords to try and beat a quest, so I need to keep going, because I want to finish this particular set of quests before NaNoWriMo starts or I'll have no room and want to focus on all of the main story stuff - and as you have likely already gathered, I don't do well with my attention divided!

My family started shopping at Aldi a while ago and for whatever reason, it wasn't me. It's nothing against Aldi, it was just I got too stressed in supermarkets and had no idea why. Oh the answers I have now mean so much to me. 

Complete honesty, I was probably a little bit of a snob about it at first, because I have always thought it was a bit cheap and cheerful, though I have since realised the error of my ways. I do love the place, but I have to be careful when I go into the store because it being busy makes me panic and if I go into a store I'm not used to and can't find things where I think they should be, I get really upset. There is a reason that my first conversation with the doctor about the ADHD assessment was me saying I think I'm autistic. 

In not too dissimilar a vein, I struggle with Aldi for a different reason and that's because they make really awesome stuff, but only do it periodically or they make something brilliant and then they discontinue it and I get really frustrated. I know they're not the only ones but it seems to be happening a lot at the moment and it really upsets me! Nespresso did it once - they made Rosabaya coffee which was featured in my favourite BBC drama, and then they stopped making it. I had tried it a couple of times and loved it so I was gutted.

Last year, Aldi didn't do their potted Cheddars at Christmas. It's basically a posh cheese spread with a TINY bit of jam over the top in a bit of a mason jar looking thing, but they are brilliant, and they were always selling out in previous years, but last year, just didn't do them. With the recent changes in stores, they also seemed to drop the three cheese pasta salad that has absolutely no business being called a salad, because it is cheese, mayonnaise, pasta and a tiny bit of onion - though that one had now made a come back. They've dropped the original flavour of their mock chicken from the fridge (can't actually remember what that was) and they've changed the teriyaki beef, and apparently the macarons were for summer only, even though they were the best thing ever. I think they were a bit of a fashion for this year, but I love them and it makes me sad I now need to drive to the big Tesco for macarons, because even I know that's excessive, but if I have cravings, I will do it. They took away, though have thankfully brought back the tomato and mascarpone sauce jars (though the price has gone up by about 50%), have seemed to stop doing hollandaise sauce in a jar, are really hit and miss of when they have their brand of the Thatchers Lemonade Cider and Blood Orange Cider, and I could take all of that (no I couldn't, I loved all of them and when I find something I like, I stick to it for reasons) if they hadn't stopped making my absolute favourite thing of all time.

Over the summer, Aldi made a vegan prawn sandwich. I've had 'vegan shrimp' before, but I never actually ate shrimp so I have no idea whether it was anything like the real thing or not, but I actually liked prawns before I decided that fish were friends and not food, so only a reasonable faximile would ever do and nothing has ever been close until that sandwich. It was on brown bread, which I hate, because I have a tense relationship with bread in general but brown bread makes me want to cry, but this sandwich was incredible. I would honestly, believe it was proper prawns, but I knew it wasn't. The taste was great, the texture was perfect, all was right with the world and then it disappeared with no warning. At least McDonald's tells you when they're going to start cancelling things off of the menu, instead of just it going bye-bye and potentially never being seen again. To say I am heartbroken isn't an understatement, because good vegetarian foods are still pretty rare and SO MANY OF THEM come around and you think, yes, this is great, and then it disappears because ranges are reduced or companies go bump or I don't really know what happens. My mum said she read that a lot of people aren't buying Beyond Meat burgers because they're so expensive (and they are) but they're SO GOOD. They're some of the best on the market, if you can stand the fact that you will have to remind yourself a few times it really isn't meat. I have days where I can't cope with that, but I still love their burgers.

Though not the intended topic of this blog, it's one of the reasons why I try and stick to big brands now like Quorn or brands like Richmond that are expanding into meat free whilst still making slaughter sausages (oh, come on, I don't say V* stuff like that very often, I'm allowed to be a little bit militant about it on very rare occasions). These products do tend to be at a slightly lower price, but I also figure they have a bit more staying power, so if I am having really bad day, or week, or month, or longer, I know I can get the sort of thing I have developed a craving for, rather than wanting a vegan smoked salmon style thing I don't think you can even get anymore (No, it's not made of carrot, and that recipe can get in the bin where it belongs.) or my beloved prawn sandwich. Hopefully Richmond keep making their original meat free sausages (because the sage and onion ones suck!) because I could just eat those for weeks. 

Why Is It So Much Easier To Write When You're Angry,

 I'm not sure if this is a me thing, an ADHD thing or actually a common thing, but seriously, why is it so much easier to write about things you're annoyed about? 

I was in the car on the way back to my house from my parents' place and was chatting away to the voice notes on my phone as I sometimes do and I realised, I don't know if it's because of my sense of humour or not, but when I'm annoyed about something, mildly vexed or just playing at being mad because it's funny, writing comes so much easier. I realise that when you get really annoyed about things like mayonnaise like I do - it was a whole other blog - then it's something that becomes quite easy to get annoyed and then write about it, but seriously, I don't know why but it's easier.

I wouldn't say I particularly struggle with road rage but there are plenty of people who wind me the hell up on the road, whether it's failing to indicate, driving at half the speed limit or, and this is my big pet hate, walking into the road and knowing that if I hit you, it's my fault.

Even before the point where The Highway Code was changed and this whole thing of hierarchy came in, the responsibility for an accident most often sat with the driver, partly because we're the ones with the insurance for being on the road. There are bits I do agree with, and that's the whole thing of making sure that drivers are reminder we're bigger, we're more dangerous and the bigger your vehicle, the more dangerous it becomes to smaller vehicles and passengers, and even if a some of the time, possibly a lot of the time, who knows, drivers aren't the problem or not the only problem, a reminder to be more careful is important. What winds me up is not the fact that we as drivers are now more responsible for children's safety near roads, but everyone's safety, despite the poor choices that people - mostly adults - make. 

Most kids school coats, particularly when they are very small, are brightly coloured and one of the reasons for that is road safety, and whilst I myself am a big fan of a biker jacket or a long black wool coat, I really detest when people decide to leave the house to walk the dog in a dark blue or black rain jacket or similar, when it's dark, the street lights are crap and the road is 30mph or worse, there are no street lights and it's a 40mph. When you're crossing the road dressed like that, drivers struggle to see you! Honestly, I could wax lyrical about this and I'm relatively sure that there are several minutes of me shrieking at my phone about it with the pitch of my voice getting higher and higher the more agitated I got. Someone walked out very close to my car, it was late when I saw them because of what they were wearing, but if something happened, it's my fault. 

I think the new Highway Code goes too far in putting the responsibility on drivers, because we've already been through a phenomenon of crash for cash for motorbikes and cars, with people essentially baiting a crash to happen so they can cash in on the value of the car and also compensation for things like whiplash, and I can only think that this transfer of responsibility is opening motorists up to the same but from pedestrians. No one wants to hit a person, or no one that doesn't need some form of evaluation, but if a person steps out in front of your car, that's not your fault and there's not always a way to stop the car and prevent damage to the person. Sometimes the worst damage we do to ourselves and others is from trying to prevent damage during an accident. 

But as I said, writing about something that annoys me is really easy, so I could really go on...

There's No Such Thing As A Perfect Environment,

Arguably I've been making NaNoWriMo sound like an insurmountable task over the last few blogs and the last thing I want to do is put off anyone thinking about trying it. I think it's worth remembering that it can be challenging for everyone, and seeing people through the challenging bits is really important, because we can feel a bit isolated in those moments and for some of us, me included, a bit of pre-planning can help to avoid the whirling pit of despair that can open up because of that. It's also been one of my primary functions for the last I can't quite remember how many years, and I feel like I might be a bit stuck in that mode.

You can make it a lot easier for yourself with a bit of forward planning and I think I've mentioned that before, or for some people the actual life side might be a bit easier. Forward planning isn't everyone's forte and it's certainly not mine in most respects, but with a supreme amount of effort and the outside motivation of "CRAP, NANO IS COMING! LOOK READY!" I can do bits and pieces that do make for an easier time.

If you live with someone else who is pretty much willing to look after you like you're a very small child, that is going to help sp much. I realise that living with parents is very often not an uncomplicated situation and not everyone's parents believe in doing everything for them, but living "at home" can help and being in a relationship when your partner is happy to take up some of the slack can help. I've also had some pretty nice housemates that were willing to do bits and pieces. Beyond that, if you live somewhere that you can get a laundry service, you're in a position to pay for meals to be prepared for you, where you don't have anyone else (including pets) to care for, you're in a good place, but most of us can't afford those sorts of services, so what do you do to prepare? 

Well first off, accept the inevitability of the fact that preparation is more like the momentum which starts the month, rather than something which will sustain you throughout. What I mean by that is, don't expect that you can have a months worth of perfectly laundered clothes, pre-made meals, bought in snacks, cleaning done and everything else your little heart desires to make it easier. Be realistic. Even if you do own enough pairs of underpants to make it from one end of the month to the other without doing a load of laundry, there's a phrase about ... 'stuff' happens, and also when you get to the end of the month you don't want to be going commando whilst waiting for the washer to finish on a load that is solely your undercrackers and they don't dry instantly. (Also, the rice pudding advert says you can microwave your socks dry, not your smalls, so just don't even think of it). You would hope that the gross things I've heard about how to make a pair of boxers last four days were out of my Scouts or the younger version, but sadly not. Let me tell you, the only way that doing something like that will help you with NaNoWriMo is going to be people talking will distract you less, because they will take a wide berth from you due to the smell. Whilst I am joking about all of this (and I am joking, believe me) the serious point is, yes, of course make sure you do all that you can to make the early few days or weeks of NaNo simpler, but also accept the fact that the majority of us are going to have domestic tasks to attend to again at some point within the month and that is not only okay, but it's actually really healthy. Taking a break from staring at the screen is right for your eyes, but it's also good for your brain.

On the theme of being realistic, it's all well and good deciding to make yourself fifty tubs of vegetable soup and freezing them, if you have the space to, before NaNoWriMo if you will actually then defrost and eat them, but if not your wasting time, money and energy into something that's not actually helping you at all. You'll be much better off thinking about really quick and easy meals that you can throw together - remembering to add at least a couple of fruit and vegetables so you don't end the month aiming to get scurvy - because it'll work out cheaper and it's easier to convince yourself to eat than something you made that you've already decided you wish you hadn't bothered with. There is a reason I'm not offering specifics here. I'm fussy about food because of textural issues - no mother, I'm not just a picky eater!! - so I eat WEIRD things, and what I eat might not be someone else's 'safe' foods, and given we are a global organisation, the things I recommend might not even be available where you are.

The most important thing, and I think this about life in general and not just about NaNoWriMo, is, think about what balls you can drop. Very often life can feel like a game of beach volleyball but in reverse, so instead of lots of people trying to keep the ball off the floor there's one person and a lot of balls. You might share a ball with other people - my mum, my dad and I all share the ball that is responsibility for Teddy (the dog) so it's not all on one of us - but other's will belong solely to you. It's worth thinking about which ones of these you can share with friends and family, of course, but it's also worth thinking about which ones matter if they hit the floor and which ones don't. The laundry, for example. Personally, I have a massive laundry hamper and more clothes than I can wear in a six week period, so if I don't do laundry, it's not going to be too big of a problem (until I have a meltdown and want a particular set of pjs and they're not washed, but that's another issue). Feeding yourself is not a ball that can be dropped. School work and similar, or work work isn't usually a ball that can be dropped, though some of us do take annual leave during NaNo because it makes things easier, we have the leave and we can. That's all fine. Limiting the responsibilities you have elsewhere is definitely valid. 

BUT...

You have to think what that costs you. I don't just mean financially though that certainly comes into it, but instead, what are the consequences of dropping that ball? For me, laundry wise, it's simple things like, what I want might not be available. It's not great, but the world isn't ending. I will then have ten plus loads to do of laundry when NaNoWriMo is over? Problem? No, but I despise laundry sitting around the house drying. Okay, so is there a different solution? Yes, my mum might be able to do some of my laundry for me when she's on her slower weeks at work. It comes back dry and folded and she even irons things for me (I don't iron) HOWEVER I need to drive it over there, and then drive back and the same in reverse to get it back. There is always going to be some degree of conversation there, which takes time I could be writing and there is also SO MUCH TRAFFIC around here at the moment that the drive is not as simple as usual and it's not overly quick. I've also been told that you can't write at the same time as driving, partly because a lot of speech to text apps suck, so I'm going to have to sacrifice writing time to be able to utilise that option. Same for if my mum offers to make me dinner. It's whether the time away from the computer screen is worth it for the benefit it gives.

I think we'd all like to live in a magical world where there are mice to do all of the housework and a chef prepares what we would like to eat just at the time we need to eat it, and our tea or coffee cups never get cold and never run out, but in the absence of a perfect world, we're just going to have to do our best, aren't we? 

Before I Sound Too Much Like a Self-Help Guide,

I read a thing on Twitter - and that sentence never really ends well these days, does it? - about a Muller corner and honestly, I didn't really understand it, and wasn't quite intrigued enough to look it up, but it did get me thinking about adverts that are winding me up recently. 

One of them is a kid's toy that I'm getting annoyed about the way that it's being advertised, but it's a hundred percent not my issue, so I'm not even going to get into it, but the other is for Mayonnaise. I can't remember which of the big H brands it is that's made this advert but it is winding me up to a point that I want to throw things at the telly when it comes on.

There's a song that goes with it and there are images of an empty fridge and it's all about how someone turned nothing into something with the addition of mayonnaise and honestly, with the state of the world being what it is at the moment, the number of people having to use food banks and everything like that, and the soaring cost of food prices generally that most people are looking at ways to save money (and one of the quick and easy ways to do that is swap from condiments that cost upwards of three pounds per jar to the store brand ones you can get for around sixty five pence) that it genuinely pains me to see this particular brand talking about making meals out of nothing with mayonnaise. There are people who genuinely have NOTHING in the fridge and are wondering where their next meal is coming from and sadly the number of those people seems to be ever increasing, and you want to make a silly song about how you made something with mayonnaise? I realise, because I am one of those people, that do look in the fridge and think, urgh, I've got nothing in, because there is nothing quick and there is nothing easy and there is nothing I want but we've got far from nothing. The images of the empty fridge which then magic up food because there's a jar of mayo in the door is just too stark of an image for me and I can't get past my hate of it.

And there are other things they could have done with the same concept. Given that it could be quite catchy - the ear worm of the song unfortunately haunts me when I accidentally think of it, like the Triple Dent gum (or whatever it is called) from Inside Out - they could make an advert that's like, add mayo to make it a meal, or make a song out of leftover recipes like how to make chicken mayo pasta, or something else, without this image of the empty fridge which then produces some good looking dinners. I realise I'm likely being over sensitive about it, but HOLY HELL IT WINDS ME UP!! 

This interruption to your regularly scheduled Preptober blog was brought to you by fury and derision. Normal service will resume tomorrow. Hopefully.

NaNoWri - No,

 A few of these Preptober blogs have been about struggling with NaNoWriMo and I think the reason I've been focusing on that is because I've been really struggling this year with so much that it was definitely a possibility at one stage, and to some extent still is, that I take this year off of NaNo or that I take it considerably easier than I have in previous years. 

There has only been one year in the past fifteen that I took the year off of NaNoWriMo and it wasn't a happy time for me. Honestly, I felt a little bit lost after it, but it was because I needed to get on with my dissertation. I knew I needed to take some time out of things which I let rule my life to focus on what I really needed to do. Sadly, not long after NaNoWriMo my Nana then passed away, so it was good that I had spent the time during November actually working on my dissertation, because I was in no fit state to do it later and I would have had to, because I needed to get a draft in. And much like with anything else, you need a draft to work from before you can really get anywhere, especially as it was something I really needed feedback on.

This year my mental health has been particularly bad, I got my ADHD diagnosis and have been all over the place with that - it started good and then it went bad and then I bounced back up again and now I'm not great - and there have been a few other significant events that have kind of rocked the boat. 

Whether you are a veteran of NaNoWriMo or just starting out, or anywhere in between really, noping out for a year does not make you any less of a writer, and you can still be a part of the community even if you have to say this is not the year, and this is not the one. You don't owe anyone a reason for doing that, and it's completely fine to keep your profile on private, not discuss your word count or skip out on the TGIO party because those things just aren't working for you. Existing in the community without participating in NaNoWriMo is definitely a valid position.

That being said, and going back to my earlier point, I was gutted I didn't even try to get involved that year. I've spoken before about my inability to treat Camp in the same way as NaNo, so I felt a little adrift, partly because of how long I have been doing this, but also partly because I knew it was another 12 months before I could get involved in this thing I have loved. I didn't want to put NaNoWriMo down, but I had to, because my ability to regulate my focus sucks. (This is one of the reasons I could have done with knowing about the ADHD before - I might have been able to look at how to do things differently!) 

The first year I did NaNoWriMo I didn't win, but I did write twenty two thousand words. I wasn't immediately happy with it, but I've got to the point where I am. It's worth pointing out that trying is better than nothing, because trying is doing, and it's doing the best that you can. If your best comes out at 22k, cool, if you're best is 50k, cool, if you're best is just turning up to write ins and finding some new writing buds, all cool. 

I've seen people attempt NaNoWriMo through all sorts, whether it be late pregnancy, the new born stage, new jobs, new relationships, new homes, being away camping and not being a person that writes with pens, new diagnoses, all sorts. The only thing that decides that something is the kiss of death for your ability to have a go is you, though it is worth thinking not only about how you will feel if you don't, but also how you will feel if you do and it doesn't go to plan. That kind of devastation on top of other things can be really hard to process, especially when we're feeling any form of insecure, which a lot of the above can make us feel even if we're not acknowledging that it is making us feel that way.

It's okay to not be sure, it's okay to take some time out and it's also okay to plan to "fail" against the official target, because the most important part is you. Give yourself the time and space to think about what is best for you and then just be you, no matter what form that has to take. 

Of Course Crying Is A Way To Communicate,

Having spent a good number of years as an ML (Municipal Liaison for the uninitiated) I know that sometimes during the noveling process, particularly during NaNoWriMo, words fail you and the only thing that can come out is tears and snot and sobs. It happens and it's totally fine. I've been in a situation where I have been the one crying - because my laptop went crazy and corrupted the file of my novel - and I have been the person trying to help the crying person, most often because they have lost either part or all of their novel. I'm not saying it's the only reason people cry during NaNoWriMo because it's definitely not, but it is a big reason. This feels like a good place to say: REMEMBER TO BACK UP YOUR NOVEL. 

Even when you hate it, even when you're tired, even when you are in a rush, back it up. I don't care how you do it, whether it's stick it on The Cloud, email it to yourself, save it on a floppy disk (kids, look it up) or all of the above, but just do it, because you will klick yourself if you don't and something happens. It's a good way to avoid a mid month meltdown when you walk around thinking all these hours of writing, WASTED. 

But anyway, moving on, if the worst should happen, or anything really that makes you cry, most of the writing groups I have ever been to as a WriMo (Writer of NaNoWriMo...) are fully of the quirky weird and wonderful people who care about others instantly because this is our bandwagon, this is our boat and we're all in it together, so shuffle up and make room, if you start crying, we're going to understand. Maybe not everyone, but there will be a lot of us who understand. Crying is just frustration trying to leave the body. Like swearing, but somewhat more socially acceptable, depending who and where you are. 

Whilst I fully intend not to be the victim of a novel murdering laptop this year, I know there are going to be times during NaNoWriMo that I need to just have a quiet sob in a corner and that's because there are a few projects I'm planning to work on during November which make me very emotional. Now, whether I choose to do those whilst out of the house (yeah, I might actually go to a physical write in this year that's not the All Night Lock In, how strange!!) or whether I decide to hide in my hovel and get on with them is still up for debate because I live somewhere different to where I did the last time I went to a write in, so the people at this one don't know me, and I don't know a lot of them, and the idea of having a minor emotional breakdown in front of them does fill me with something that feels like sinking dread, but I also know that it shouldn't, because we all get at least a little bit emotionally invested in our novels. 

If your own novel is making you cry and not just because it has vanished into the lines of computer code and is utterly unrecoverable, it's because there is a whole lot of 'you' going into it, and sometimes that's the best kind of therapy anyone can ask for and sometimes it feels horrible. Sometimes, particularly when you share your work online, or if you know it's going to be published, sharing THAT MUCH of yourself feels like you're left overexposed and honestly, for me it made me feel a bit sick. 

In my lifetime, (God why does saying that make me feel like I'm in my mid sixties?) I have self-published two novels. One of them can still be found on Amazon, and the other can't and there's a reason for that. I loved it when I wrote it, and to an extent I love it now, because it was the first novel I ever finished writing. I started it for my very first NaNoWriMo way, way, way, way, way, way, way back when, and I finished it nine months later. I am proud of younger me for failing NaNoWriMo but still seeing that novel through to the end, and I'm really proud of putting myself out there and self-publishing it, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't also proud of having re-read it, thinking, Christ, this is actually kind of trash and pulling it. Fairies was written by someone who had grown a lot by writing that first novel (I'm not mentioning the title of it because it was really bad!) and I'm still supremely proud of that one. Yes, you can tell it was written by a teenager, but there is a reason for that. It was written by a teenager!! 

I recently re-read a lot of Fairies and there were points that made me cry. I didn't do it to try and turn on that emotional tap like I do with watching films that make me cry, sometimes, but I did it because I have still been struggling to write a sequel to Fairies, which has had a title for over a decade, but is yet to be much more than that. Every time I write parts of the draft of that novel, I have to stop to have a sob and wipe my eyes. Honestly, it's a good job I can touch type because sometimes, I can't see anything trying to write it, but it's because I love it, too, even if it's little, weird, half formed state that it's in now. Fairies helped to make me who I am because it is still one of the biggest achievements in my life. I think maybe one of the reasons I struggle with Butterflies - the sequel - is because I put too much pressure on it to be like it's older sibling, and I think if it doesn't feel like I'm investing as much of myself into it, maybe I'm doing it wrong. (Which of course, is also total nonsense.)

If any of these blogs seem a little nonsensical, it's worth remembering that getting back into the habit of writing takes some time and I'm really struggling to think in straight lines at the moment because of the struggles I'm having with my mental health issues. Please bear with me (why do I always have to Google if it's bear or bare?) and hopefully normal service will resume, shortly. I'm still going to be weird though. That's engrained at this stage. :) 

What Happens If I Fall Out Of Love With My Draft?

Okay, so you start NaNoWriMo and you are however far into writing it and you think, hell, I'm not in love with this anymore, let me reassure you, you're not alone. Like every relationship, your relationship with your novel is highly unlikely to be smooth sailing. There is plenty of opportunity for your novel to make you sad, make you happy, make you angry and make you excited and maybe, just maybe, make you all of those things at once. There will be times you fall out with your novel, and that is a hundred percent okay. If you were a novelist on a deadline you might need to be worried, but if you are working on your debut, writing for fun, or you have plenty of time before you need to submit something, falling out with your novel is just one of those things that you need to accept is highly likely to happen. There are a range of things you can do if this happens, but firstly, you need to figure out what went wrong.

The first thing to think bout is are you really in the mood for this? If I’m not in the mood to be writing, it is going to show, because I will get testy and stroppy and I will think everything I am writing is a steaming pile of horse dookie, and if there is nothing I can do about the mood - sometimes I need food, sometimes I need a drink, sometimes I need some wine, but sometimes, none of that does anything and at those times I need to take a break. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, I’m going for a shower, sometimes I need to go for a walk or a run, or just play with the dog for a bit, but what I need is to get away from the computer screen and what I am writing for a short break. Sometimes it needs to be a longer break because I’m too stuck in my head, and actually, sometimes it’s worth just saying I’m going to go back to pen and paper or use one of the typewriters because a change can be as good as a rest. The novel, at that point, is not the problem, the problem is you and your mood and your attitude. Sort yourself out and look after yourself and it’ll all get just a little bit easier.

Sometimes a break doesn’t do anything, because what you are writing actually isn’t that great, and do you know something? That’s the point of a draft. I’m sure some people do crack out amazing first drafts, but they’re the exception, we’re the rule. (Yes, I am quoting a movie and yes it is He’s Just Not That Into You. I haven’t even seen it in years, but that line always sticks with me.) The most important thing you need to decide is, will it do for now? Again, if you’re on a deadline, it’s probably worth looking at whether you can do what you’re doing better, but if you have time, it’s worth just bashing through to the end and then picking it up in the redraft or editing stage, because it’s really easy to get obsessed with getting ‘this one bit’ or ‘this one scene’ just right and it is to the detriment of everything else. If you just move on from the bit, whether that is skip that bit because it’s not working, or keep slogging on until it gets easier, at least you’re getting away from having a blank page. You can’t work with something that is not there, so something is better than nothing. There’s plenty of places in novels that have been published where the text isn’t perfect and actually you might want to throw a book across the room, whether it’s because there’s plot holes or because that particular bit is boring, but necessary, so don’t feel like your first draft has to be perfect, when it doesn’t. Don’t beat yourself up and make yourself feel like you’re not as good at what you’re doing because it doesn’t go right first time.

Another option, and I think this is a good one during NaNoWriMo is to sit and think, okay, this isn’t working, I’m going to try it again. Now, this works best when you try it in a different way, but at the same time, you don’t have to. If you want to just take another crack at it, do it, but sometimes changing tenses works, sometimes changing the voice of it helps, again, sometimes changing what you’re using to write helps. If I’m writing something like crime fiction, or something really dark, I have to do it on the typewriters, because it’s the only way that it comes out right, but at the same time, anything I try and write on the typewriters, particularly the manuals, takes a turn for the dark side. Sometimes that’s necessary and other times it does not work, but at least I tried. During NaNoWriMo, I keep both or all copies of whatever bit I’m trying to write and it all adds to the total. I’m not saying it’s the reason she did it, but Stephanie Meyer did re-write Twilight from the perspective of the guy, as did E. L. James. Again, not saying they’re literary geniuses, but sometimes thinking about the same thing in a different way actually helps you see where the problems are and helps you find your way out of them.

Maybe it is one of those things where nothing is working, or actually this whole project doesn’t feel right anymore, it’s not working and you no longer have any love for it. You do know it’s a hundred percent okay to change your mind, right? Changing your project part way through is definitely okay, both in terms of NaNoWriMo and in general. Just like with relationships, sometimes it’s not that it’s not the right one, it’s that it’s not the right time. I’ve been working on a few different projects for a while that occasionally I just throw the towel in on, because it just doesn’t feel like it is working, but then when I have left it to simmer on the back burner for a bit, I might look at it differently, or see it a different way, or something happens in my life that makes me feel somewhat inspired differently and whether I go back and try to edit, redraft or finish the draft I was working on or I decide to just have a whole new go at drafting it depends on what it is, but I do it, because it works for me. 

Sometimes the temptation is to throw the baby out with the bathwater and burn the notebook, delete the file, scrub it from the server or whatever. On Grey’s Anatomy, someone ate their novel, because it was a load of crap. I don’t recommend this, because paper wasn’t made to be digested, but the point is, don’t be tempted to get rid of it completely just because it’s not working right now. You might not be able to polish a turd, but if you leave it in the right place for a few months - somewhere you can’t see it or smell it - it can turn into something like compost which can help you to make something else turn right eventually. 

God that’s a lot of similes and metaphors, isn’t it? 

The most important thing, to my mind anyway, is just remembering you are not alone. It can feel disastrous when everyone else seems to be doing really well and you’re sat there struggling or hating your idea or novel. Like any social media, it’s worth remembering that there is a whole lot going on behind the number that people are posting and NaNoWriMo isn’t, primarily, about competing against other people, it’s about competing with yourself and your life and your priorities, so remember that some people are better at blocking things out, some people have less commitments and responsibilities and some people can just afford better noise cancelling headphones. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything, so don’t lose hope. All is not lost on one bad line, paragraph, chapter or even draft.

How Do You Decide What You're Going To Write For NaNoWriMo?

If you're in the position to be asking this question, generally you'll be sat in one of two situations. One of those situations is staring at a blank page and wondering what to put onto it. The other is having multiple ideas, too many really and either not knowing where to start or not knowing which to carry on with. There is one important thing to remember in each of these instances and that is there is no right answer. 

One of the things that is great about NaNoWriMo is that, whilst there is general idea of how we write for it, there are very few hard and fast rules for it. Obviously you want to write an original work (I include fan fiction and everything like that in my idea of what constitutes an original work, I just mean you can't borrow everything from something else), it has to be written in the timeframe and the genre doesn't matter. You can write more than fifty thousand words and you can write across a few projects if you really want to. One of my favourite things on that is definitely the ability to abandon a project if it is just not working.

For some of us, a blank page is exciting because of all of the possibilities that it presents, but for others, it's anxiety inducing because there is a lot of pressure from a blank page to fill it with something, and writers always want to write something great. It's hard because that kind of pressure, for most people, isn't conducive to a good working environment. When we stress ourselves too much, we actually make it impossible to achieve what we are trying to achieve, because stress compromises our cognitive functions. That being said, I know first hand that a little bit of pressure is good. Write or Die has only ever been as successful as it has because of the added pressure of Kamikaze mode. I think 4thewords battles are the same because, although you don't have to deal with the computer deleting your words if you don't keep writing, involvement in 4thewords only works if the game motivates you and then you want to beat the monsters, gather the items and all those other things that you do by writing. Obviously that extra activity causes extra pressure... 

If you don't know where to start and the blank page seems to baffling, write what you know. Write about people you know, write fan fiction, write something, because it flexes the muscles that you need to be creative, and it might be that you happen upon something when writing about something else. If you're still stuck, Write Ins, whether virtual or online, are a good way to shake your ideas around with other writers and I can guarantee there will be other people in the same situation. Some people LOVE talking about their current project, some people don't and some people will be as lost and just winging it. That's fine. It's also fine if it doesn't magic itself up in the first few days. There is a theory of micro-actions which suggests that taking the smallest of steps towards a goal actually helps to prod your brain into the right direction, so even just sitting down at the laptop or with the notebook and trying to tease out something  is a step in the right direction, even if it is only a baby step.

If you're in the opposite situation and you're struggling with too many ideas and not enough time, energy, focus or paper to crack on with all of them, figure out which one you are most passionate about first. There's nothing wrong with choosing to flit between a few different projects, though it is worth limiting this to only a handful because otherwise you'll waste time trying to get yourself back up to speed each time you change. If you need to write something  sad when your sad, violent when you're angry and dramatic when you're happy - I dunno, people are weird - then there's nothing wrong with that, and whilst traditional NaNoWriMo is bashing through fifty thousand words of one project, there's nothing wrong with using it to bulk up a few projects or even finish a few projects if the feeling takes you. Like I said, no right answers, but the great thing about there being no right answer is there is also no wrong answer. Even if you decided to cheat NaNo, which I am in no way supporting by the way, you're actually only cheating yourself. Cheating is definitely the wrong answer, even when there is no wrong answer.

If you want to write, whether that be for fun, to relax or for a career, cheating your way through NaNo isn't going to be anything like as entertaining as finishing your novel, it won't relax you as much as writing something that helps you to process thoughts and feelings and events and it's not going to produce a novel for you that you can then start trying to either self-publish or start querying for an agent or publisher. If you are going to do it, you just have to do it, and accept that sometimes it's going to be hard. I hate the phrase of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but everything you write does make you learn, even when it's total crap. 

Sometimes, It's Not Even Being Tired,

I've already mentioned that over the last few weeks I have struggled a lot with a few things with the dreaded ADHD, and one of the biggest things with it, other than the slight identity crisis that it sent me into, was, or is, brain fog.

I am used to feeling tired. I have spent a long time being tired and not really knowing why, and it's in part because my sleeping pattern is massively affected by the ADHD, but it's also because a few things feel like 'tired' but they're not actually the feeling of being tired, so it doesn't matter how much sleep I get, those feelings or emotions or whatever may be there anyway, because sleep is not what I need in those moments. Sometimes, it's as simple as I need caffeine, because it is enough of a stimulant to be able to sharpen my focus a little bit and let me get on with what I need to do, sometimes, it's a bigger issue of being fully burnt out and needing to take some time out to do things that all me to reset a little and sometimes it is the beloved brain fog that I haven't really got used to and I don't really know how to shift, if there even is a way.

Mostly I am pretty good that I can drive even when I am having a bad day, but when I have a bad day with it, I really can't drive. Driving is like my base line because even though I've not been doing it for long, any time I render myself unable to drive because of medication or alcohol, I miss being able to use my car, and any time my car isn't there, I struggle without it. I'm rather attached to the freedom of just being able to go anywhere with it since I've done quite a lot of driving since I passed my test and not being limited to doing things I can get a lift or public transport to has been pretty great.

Over the last couple of days the brain fog has been so bad that I have kind of felt as though I shouldn't drive if I can avoid it, because caffeine isn't doing anything to make things clearer, sleep is doing nothing and I don't really know what else to try. Other people with ADHD have said that medication can help, but I would be lying if I said it didn't make me anxious because of all of the bad experiences I've had with medication for anxiety and depression. Honestly, the way I've been feeling recently feels like the early days of citalopram all over again, and nothing but time actually helped with that, and eventually recovering enough to come off of the medication all together. That also really helped.

Whilst I'm not sure what's causing it, I'm trying to battle through it and also realising that there is a problem with brain fog in that it makes me forget to do things like cook until the point where I get dizzier, I can't exercise because I already feel dizzy and don't want to go out on my own (as in, without another person) and if I took Chai then I would be concerned that if I fell over or collapsed walking her again then she would do a runner again (though when that happened, she had only been with me for a couple of weeks and may not have realised that her name wasn't China anymore when I was calling for her) and I can't remember what I've drank so I am more inclined to have coffee, given that it is caffeinated and the caffeine can help, but it is also very dehydrating so when the brain fog is even partly to do with dehydration, I'm at risk of making it worse. 

All of this makes me feel as though I sound incapable of looking after myself, and the truth is that sometimes I am. Sometimes I ask my mum if I can stay with her, or she can have Chai, because I either can't look after us both at that moment, or I can't look after myself if I'm focusing on her. There are times when I use things like HelloFresh, because they stop me from needing to plan or make too many decisions and their instructions are pretty simple. I can also tell that I've not been eating properly by how many of the recipes are sat around my kitchen. (I never said it was idiot proof.) Sometimes the things which have worked before don't work the next time things are hard and sometimes the things you think will work don't do anything. The whole thing is a balancing act between what I actually have the capacity to do and what will help me to focus less on things that I can get help for. I think that makes sense, but on the day I'm writing this I'm so foggy I'm not even sure. Then again, iced coffee, a banana and a packet of crisps have taken the edge off of the worst of it.

The Happy Accident of Being Called Charlie,

Fourteen years ago, I decided I was a bit sick of being called Charlotte, because being from where I am from people don't pronounce it properly and it has annoyed me for longer than I can remember. For reasons that have never been known to me I've never been much of a fan of because called Chaz or similar and I got to the age where Lotti felt a bit infantile on me. (No judgement for any older teens or adults called Lotti, Lottie, or any other spelling, it was just how it felt for me.) I decided I was going to try out Charlie, and if I hated it, well then, it was two years of college and then I was moving to London, so it didn't really matter. Yes, I had already decided I was going to London at that stage, even though I had never even heard of the university I went on to attend. 

When I use my actual name online or I talk to people in public, I've found people have a tendency to use pet names that drive me crazy. It was particularly bad when I worked in a DIY store and there was a tendency to call all of the guys mate and then single me out (I was usually the only girl in the store as there weren't that many of us in the company) by calling me either darling or sweetie (or something similar) and it winds me up. In that particular context, it was because the guys doing so looked at me sceptically when I gave them answers to the questions they were asking, and that was if they got over the reluctance of asking a woman in the first place, they would look at me sceptically and then try and locate the nearest male member of staff and then be satisfied by the same answer from them. One of the things I have always taken pride in is that if I don't know the answer to something, I will say I don't know, because I would rather do that than anything else. Whilst most of the people I met in the store didn't know me or know anything about me, I still took it personally (joys of ADHD, particularly when it's undiagnosed) and it's also really sexist. Assuming someone doesn't know something because of their gender is actually properly sexist even when you're not doing it intentionally. To be fair, I should have expected it a little bit, but really it wasn't a good job for me, and one of the reasons I got it was because I was a woman. I think the company were catching shade from somewhere about their diversity figures and the lack of women in the business, or they were trying to anticipate that it was going to happen eventually, so they were looking to recruit more women. 

Although I have never changed my name officially, I have considered it a number of times but I do occasionally go back to using Charlotte, though very rarely. My online name has been CharliesWrite for long enough that for things like emails, Charlie is ambiguous enough that a lot of people assume I'm male and have a tendency not to talk down to me, assume that I don't know things, and also tend to call me mate instead of the sort of pet names that make my skin crawl a little because they're a little too much like terms of endearment from someone that I don't know. It wasn't the reason I actually chose to use Charlie, but it was a happy accident. Honestly the decision to use the name Charlie was such a quick one, that the only thing I thought about was not being Charlotte, that Lotti had T's in it as well and that always caused a problem, and I wasn't that big of a fan of my middle name to start using that instead. (It's not horrendous or anything, but I just didn't fancy being called Elizabeth, because it didn't seem to fit me, and neither did Liz, Lizzie or Eliza, though if I had decided on Lizzie I would probably have spelt it was Lizzi because I really had something against the letter E, though I don't know why.) 

There are times when that ambiguity has caused a problem. My ex partner took great exception to the fact that my name was unisex, because he used to be 'accused' of being gay and dating a man called Charlie. He liked having photos all over his Facebook of the pair of us because at least then he could show people photos and 'prove' that he wasn't gay. It was something I never really challenged him on at the time, but it was always something he was pretty sensitive about and looking back on it I really wish I had asked him why the hell he cared. The idea that anyone would think he was gay was a really touchy subject. Then again, it did seem like when the conversation came up it was more that people were making fun rather than getting genuinely confused and in all honesty, I find it disappointing that people still think it's something to be joked about, or that me being called Charlie was such a big deal to some people. Anyway, being the stubborn person that I am, when he asked me to change my name for that reason or at least let him use a different version of it, I said no, but it made me realise I had become somewhat attached to the name, and what it represented to me and about me. I had kind of adopted it into being a part of my identity, and it's something I'm no longer quite sure how to put down, even if I wanted to. Even if my screen name confuses people when I'm trying to tell them how to spell it. He still tried to get me to use either Char, Charl or that one I've always hated of Chaz (God, I don't know why I hate that one so much but I really, really hate it on me) and I was just too stubborn to respond, or I would just ask him what my name was. Whether it is thankfully or sadly I don't know, but I was the more stubborn one, so the name Charlie stuck.