Last year I spent Halloween dressed up as a witch, getting hideously drunk at a house party less than two weeks before I was leaving London. Though I had various leaving parties, this was the last time nearly all the people I’d moved to London with and a few I’d got to know along the way.

This Halloween will be considerably quieter and more sober, but hopefully just as significant. At midnight it will be November, and I will be writing the first few words of my NaNoWriMo novel. 50,000 words in one month.

I spent last Sunday evening listening to David Nicholls and Nick Hornby talk about their latest novels as part of the Durham Book Festival. They shared that they write about 500 words a day. I’ll be aiming for 2000. The reality of this is starting to finally sink in. Juliet Naked is 85,000 words, by the end of November I’m aiming to have written around two thirds of that. I shared this with David and Nick as they signed my books afterwards and they both looked quite horrified. Two published authors caught in the headlights of imagining getting that many words down in such a short space of time. It should have been enough to make me run away screaming from this crazy month ahead of me.

With less than 36 hours before it kicks off my mental state switches between complete fear and total excitement. I sometimes also just stop thinking about it or make myself believe that 50,000 words is easy to do. In reality I haven’t got a clue what this month will bring or how I’ll juggle work, conferences, tutoring, social life and an average of 1667 words a day. But the one thing I know is that deadlines work for me and if it means most of my weekends in November will be spent making up for the words not typed during the week it’s more likely than not I will do it. It is a huge challenge, but one I’m confident I can succeed in. (In a weeks time I’ll probably want to delete that last sentence!!!)

Back in August I set myself a challenge of writing a blog a day over 18 days. In that time I wrote 19 blogs, averaging 512 words per blog. A total of 9722 words in just over two weeks. At the start it was daunting and seemed quite difficult, two weeks later I was finding it much easier to write. Although I wasn’t considering NaNoWriMo at that point it was a nice warm up. And although it may have been only a tenth of what I have to write in the month, at least with NaNo there’s no worry about editing or uploading (which can take up a good bit of time when you have a few links and pictures).

I have finally decided which of my stories I am going for, though it has changed a bit since I started in February. Tomorrow I’ll be gathering all my research together, handy for reference if needed as I go along. I think I have an idea of the first chapter, again not what I had originally written. I am starting from scratch though some of the work I’ve already done may find it’s way in to the book once I start the editing process… but that’s December and onwards. I have some intensive writing to do first!

The only other concern in November is what will happen with this blog? I’d like to think that I’ll keep up at least a couple of posts a week, venting my frustrations and general feelings about the NaNoWriMo challenge. Or just a way of getting out of my system anything that is diverting attention away from getting my writing done. I hope you’ll bear with me through the ups, downs and possible silences that November will bring. And I promise whatever happens I’ll be back to full blogging duty in December with plenty of festive cheer.