#ramblings #NaNoWriMo2018 To NaNo or not to NaNo? #amwriting #writerslife #NaNo #kidsbirthdays #HarryPotter #cake

So it’s the 31st October which only means one thing, tomorrow is November. Now that’s a good thing in a few ways, I can (finally) put the heating on, my twins celebrate their birthday which is very important when you’re going to be eight, it’s Black Friday when I can waste an enormous amount of time looking at ‘deals’ online that I can’t afford, I have to decorate a cake for said birthday which is never simple and it is the start of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month.

The aim of NaNo, for those who don’t know, is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. If that sounds easy then I will assume that you are not a writer, as it is not all that easy. Although saying that, I have attempted it twice and have completed it both times, the second time in a slightly insane 14 days.

Doing NaNo has taught me a few things about myself. Perhaps the most interesting for me was that I do not like losing, I was going to finish NaNo and there was no other option. I was not going to fail. Now if you told me that you’d tried NaNo and had managed any words at all but had not reached 50K then I would never think that you had failed, but for me, I think of it as a failure. But that puts a lot of pressure on me and that is something that I really don’t need.

For this year’s NaNo, I have planned to start a new book that is completely different to anything that I have tried to write before. I’m quite excited about it although I am continuing my panster streak and haven’t done any planning. I’ve done a bit of research and my two main characters have names but that’s it. How I wish that I could be a planner but it is not something that I seem to be able to do.

So you might be wondering why I’m writing a blog post entitled To NaNo or not to NaNo. And that is because I am really worried that this year I won’t finish it. As well as normal life I am also going to be having major surgery towards the end of the month. Now maybe after that, I will be spending a lot of time resting and so I might be able to write, but it is quite possible that my brain won’t quite be in the right frame of mind to write anything that makes sense. Last time that I had a general anaesthetic it took me a good week to feel like I’d got over it, the minor procedure that I had was irrelevant.

But before I have the operation I need to get my life sorted for me being out of action for possibly a good few months. As a single parent, this is a scary prospect. I am determinedly independent and do not like asking for help. I have been trying to teach my children to do some simple household tasks, like using the washing machine or loading the dishwasher. The later of these is not going well, it seems that almost eight year olds are just not committed to stacking a dishwasher in the best way possible and cannot understand why plates need to be facing the same direction, for example.

Our dog, Dotty, and last years cake.

But the question is whether in nineteen days I can write 50,000 words, get the house clean and sorted, arrange for the animals to be looked for while I’m out of action, organise a birthday party, get birthday presents wrapped and sorted (for the actual day which is five days after the operation) and, perhaps most importantly of all, decorate a cake in a Harry Potter theme.

Time will tell but please wish me luck!!!