“When you are writing, you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room.”
―Tom Waits

…is just around the corner, Dear Reader, and with it: NaNoWriMo!

If you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon, it’s about writing an entire novel in one month – 50,000 words, to be exact – about the lower limit for what can be called a novel – and the abbreviation stands for “National Novel Writing Month”. This year I plan on making an honest attempt to pen down those 50,000 words before November’s end and the end of my 30s – and I do mean pen! Doing this in long hand will bring both benefits and drawbacks:

• It will be slower, but I can resist the urge to edit as I go.
• I can write anywhere without losing continuity, but it will be more difficult to keep an accurate word count.
• I’ll have to lug two notebooks and at least one pen around all the time, but I’ll be able to use any extra time I get!

The past three years I’ve done increasingly worse at NaNoWriMo. 2012 I fell short by about 12,000 words due to stupidly deleting an entire chapter and then coming down with a high fever the final week. 2013 I made a mistake in research which invalidated three quarters of the first 6-7,000 words, and I spent the rest of the month (and then some) stuck in re-research. 2014 I just said ‘fuck it’ and jumped onto the Movember band wagon instead, producing facial hair instead of words.

This year, I come better prepared and more determined.

I doubt 50K will see me through the entire story, and I’m far from certain my notebook will fit even half the words I need. I’m not even sure I can manage to hand-write 1,667 words a day between my day job and the drawing I need to get done.

But at least I will try.

My aim is to keep you up updated on my progress so you can rejoice in my success or take pity in my failure (or vice versa). Really though, regardless of my exact word count I will be further along in a month than I am today.

So: NaNoWriMo, here I come!