But then there are the times you get stuck. I get on a roll and see my word count soaring in a couple of hours, then I hit a turning point. I’m suddenly at a cliff edge and can see the other side, but there’s no way across. And this is where Twitter keeps me going. Within minutes of tweeting that I’m stuck I had people suggesting solutions and pushing me on. @rebeccablain tweeted “Even corrupt leaders make stupid decisions” and that set me off again. I’d be so caught up in my lead characters moving through the story I’d forgotten that the other characters were there to help the story along. Their stories and actions could be independent of the main characters, yet inadvertently create the situation that would get them across the void and onto the next bit of the story.

I’m up to 19000 words and just over half way through the month, but I’m determined to hit the 50k mark in the next two weeks. A few more days of 3000 words and I’ll make up the shortfall and before I know it (well probably the last couple of days of the month!!!) be sprinting to the finish line.

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.

Something clicked on Sunday night which made me understand why I’m so adverse to joining a writing group, or share my work with other writers in general. I can’t put it down to anything Nick or David said, but just more my own opinions on their books and where they come from.

One Day I enjoyed immensely. It is the first book to make me cry in a while. I haven’t read anything by David Nicholls before, but following this will be buying and reading Starter for Ten very soon. The book follows two characters Emma and Dexter over twenty years, on one particular day each year. Both characters are flawed, at times frustrating and annoying, but I always wanted things to work out for them. I liked them and I like the story. I was gripped and it was one of those books that when I realised I was coming to the end, wanted to know what happened just as much as I didn’t want it to end.

By contrast Nick Hornby is an author I have read before. High Fidelityis my favourite of his novels. Juliet, Naked had three main characters and again they were flawed, frustrating and annoying. Unfortunately I didn’t care less what happened to them. The story was compelling and I wanted to see what happened in the end, it kept me entertained. But I really didn’t care about the characters. I wanted to, but I found myself apathetic towards their fate. The reason I want to pick up another Hornby book as soon as possible is to reduce the disappointment I felt with this book.

But both books I read, enjoy and critique as a reader. Not as a writer. Writing doesn’t stop my enjoyment of books. Sometimes after reading a particular chapter or finishing a book I really enjoyed it will inspire some ideas of my own. However if I don’t enjoy it I’ve never been tempted to think about how I would have written it. As I read I get lost in the story, and if it’s good I’m too absorbed to critique it at all.

I think this is my problem with writing groups. I don’t care what other writers think about my work. I am writing for myself, and for readers who might enjoy the story. Firstly I am writing for me, because lets face it if I don’t get published I don’t want it to feel like a waste. Secondly for my readers, even if that only ever ends up being friends and family, I don’t want to waste their time. Eventually I hope I’ll be caring about what agents and publishers think. But I don’t care if another writer would have written this in that way. Or another writer thinks that this should or shouldn’t have happened. I write because I love reading and I love writing. Not because I want to impress anyone.

If I get the opinion of a few avid readers that’s far more valuable. People who genuinely love books and love stories. When people are reading as readers they want the story to be understandable and to flow. I want them to be absorbed into the reality I have created and care about the characters and what happens to them.

Wherever criticism comes from I think I have good enough judge of my own work to know when to take it on as it will improve my work as a whole, or when it just comes because someone doesn’t enjoy the genre, or the way I have written. I’m sure there are people out there who will hate One Day and will love Juliet, Naked. Their opinion is no more or less valid that mine. As I hope I develop a knack of writing fiction, I’ll also discover who’s honest opinion I can trust to help me develop my work to be the best it can be. As a writer there will always be people who dislike what I write. I’m hoping there will also be people who love what I write, and someone out there to publish it.

p.s. After Sunday night I’m a little bit in love with David Nicholls… he is gorgeous, geeky, funny and an author! I think he might be my first proper author crush!!!

So I have to do it. This week. Back to Body Balance. Back to working out at home. And in a week or two back to Spinning as well (one step at a time, I need to motivate myself before I kill myself with exercise!)

Both exercise and writing need to be staple parts of my routine once again because in a couple of weeks it will be November. And November is NaNoWriMo. That’s National Novel Writing Month. I will be trying to write 50,000 words in one month. To be honest I’m not thinking about the reality of it too much. My plan is that every spare minute between work, sleep and exercising will be spent writing. I do have a weekend in London planned. But that is three hours on a train each way. Plenty of writing time even then.

For me the aim of NaNoWriMo is to get past the mental block I have about writing fiction. As with blogging I just need to do it and as I do I am sure I will find my voice. I am not expecting 50,000 words of fabulousness at the end of the month. 50,000 words with the potential to be fabulous after copious amounts of editing would be a great achievement.

First I need to decide what I am going to write. I have two ideas which already have outlines and a certain level of character development. I have a further two with nothing much done so far. For a while I thought I might just dive into something new and see what happens. But if what happens is writers block I have nothing to push me on. No cues to get me writing again. That could be fatal and mean I stop before I’ve even started. So it’s down to the two ideas with outlines, characters and some initial efforts to get them down onto paper.

Sooo… which one do I pick? I’ve written a synopsis of both and sent them to a few friends for their opinion. It took me a good couple of minutes of hovering over the send button before I let the email go. The friends I’ve sent it too are mostly bookworms. One has already written a couple of scripts which I really enjoyed. Another sells books for a living and has probably seen thousands of synopsis better than my attempts. Two I’m in a book club with and together we’ve pulled apart novels that other people have poured their heart and soul in to writing. I’m petrified that someone will reply with the email equivalent of incessant laughter at the thought of me writing a novel. It isn’t that my friends are cruel. It is that I am feeling quite insecure.

If nothing else I’m hoping NaNoWriMo will boost my confidence about writing fiction. Whatever I write is never going to be liked by everyone so I need to learn how to be confident about my writing. I will have to learn how to differentiate between helpful feedback and negative criticism. And work out which are the people I know who will read my work as it develops and give me an honest and useful response.

I am scared that whatever I do write might be completely wrong. I might get to the end of the month and discover I can’t write fiction at all. But this is precisely why I need NaNoWriMo. To push me out of my comfort zone and see exactly what I’m made of!

There are becoming two strands to this, writing and business. This is where my wish list comes in. The things I’d love to be paid to do. The things I’d still want to do even if I won millions on the lottery and could choose not to work.

Journalism: A regular contributor to The Guardian (Weekend/The Guide/G2) and Marie Claire. A weekly/monthly column would be great, as well as the opportunity to write opinion, comment and features.

Novelist: Get the stories out of my head onto paper, but have a real deadline to work to. Deadlines are great for me. I will always achieve a deadline even if it means a couple of days with no sleep at all.

Business: Communications, HR and Marketing are all passions of mine, and predominantly self taught. But I have taken every opportunity to learn, train and build on my knowledge. I’d love to work with small businesses, who are passionate about what they do, as opposed to selling their soul and being obsessed about making as much money in the shortest time possible. My motivation for this is not to make millions myself, but to prove to the world that business can be about so much more than a huge profit. Local businesses run by people who care about the community. It’s the future.

Three careers not just one, but it’s something to aim for. However small steps are required. I’m not going to become a national literary treasure and saviour of North East small businesses overnight.

And as a blog is a chance to interact, not just broadcast this is where you, dear readers, get a chance to help me start taking those small steps in Journalism. Starting on the bottom rung. Do you know anyone who needs a writer? Online magazines, local newspapers… anyone or anything I could write for and get published? My blog is my portfolio and I’m pretty versatile on what I can write about.

If you do, please email me and with your contacts or direct them to my blog. Or both.

As for the aspirations of novelist and business I have plans there, too but you can’t possibly imagine how happy it would make me to get my writing out there, beyond the pages of helenthornber.com

Thank you lovely people for reading!

In The Writers Tale I mentioned (or rather I used Russell T Davies to illustrate) that there isn’t a particular way to write. In fact, despite me obsessing about having the right ‘voice’ for my stories, the story is the most important part.

Particularly Project No.2 I know I have a very strong story, and though no story is original, through research I’m fairly sure my story is different enough. And good enough to eventually be a popular piece of literature (for a couple of months at least).

Story is more important than anything else. If you don’t have a good story all the other stuff doesn’t matter. My favourite example of this is Toy Story. If you ask people what was outstanding about it they will probably defer to telling you it was the first feature length film to be entirely in CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). That was significant, no doubt. But had it been a bad story it would have been a bad thing. Had it been a bad story it’s most likely CGI would have been blamed, and it might have had a hugely negative impact on an industry from the start. The story was the hero for Toy Story. It was the hero for Pixar, Dreamworks and anyone else making CGI features since. It was a good story that meant a new type of movie became a whole genre very quickly.

Taking part in a book club over the past few months has helped me see how a good story can triumph over bad writing, or a style that a reader isn’t comfortable with. On the other hand a book written well but with a bad ending is a book you probably won’t recommend. We’ve just read the The Time Traveler’s Wife and I know a lot of people find the structure of the book and storytelling style challenging. But despite that it is a popular book. That is because the story compels you to continue, and it haunts you enough to recommend it to other people. Again a great story more than compensates for the flaws. A great story makes the reader or viewer want to make the effort to get through a style that they find challenging.

Stephanie Meyer has come in for a lot of stick about The Twilight Saga. But did she ever say she was trying to emulate the great writers? No. She just wanted to tell a story. Not trying to impress critics. And much as people scoff at grammatical errors, and the style of writing, she has entertained us in our millions. She has compelled us to go and buy her books and read them as quickly as possible. And tell everyone else to go and read them too. In additional she’s made a hell of a lot of women (not just teenage girls, but fully grown women) fall in love with a fictional vampire. The story wins again.

I can’t help but bring Shakespeare into this argument too. Although Shakespeare is a genius, as a 15-year-old teenager Shakespearian language is a total pain. It is difficult to read and understand. It was the strength of the story of Macbeth that made me persevere. I really did struggle with it, but I loved it. It gripped me. It still does to this day. It’s a story that I will find exciting and clever for a lifetime. I really loved it. To this day I find Shakespeare difficult, but I still believe everyone needs to see Macbeth

It is my firm belief (and I have very few firm beliefs) that story is more important than anything else. It can be enhanced by how it is told. It can become legendary. But ultimately if the story is bad then nothing can redeem it. A great story will shine through bad writing or bad acting. Great writing or great acting can never save a bad story.

Over the centuries there must have been millions of stories, fables and myths told, many more than survive today. Stories that were told before people could write, let alone make blockbuster CGI movies. The stories that still exist, survive only because of the strength of the story.

The End.

In the past it has been full steam ahead, no time for sleep. Exciting things being much more important than all the sensible stuff like food, sleep, exercise and relaxation. But it seems I may have finally learned that burning myself out is bad. And balance is good.

So what exactly are all these exciting things?

Well first on my list is me. I am excited because my confidence is returning, my energy is increasing and my weight is dropping. I am feeling much more ‘Helen’ like than I have for a long time.

Secondly is work. The day job. I am enjoying it and feel motivated and energised. There’s lots of fun stuff happening, and so many projects to do. Lots of deadlines too, but they will all get met. Nothing makes me happier than lots of projects and lots of energy.

Thing number three is writing. My blogging has taken on a life of it’s own. Thanks to Russell T Davies (see yesterdays blog) and Stephen Fry’s blog, my guilt about my novels is making a hasty retreat. I am finally enjoying writing and feeling satisfied by what’s being produced.

Number four is a new entry. And it is about 21 hours old. I had a thunderbolt of inspiration about setting up in business yesterday. It’s under wraps this moment as it’s early days (well ‘day’ in fact) but I think this is the solution to my problem of (a) wanting to work for myself eventually and (b) making the most of my strengths.

Life is good. And I’m enjoying it now. Because things change, tomorrow something awful could happen or generally stuff might not work out. Mostly I’m hoping that I have turned over a new leaf when it comes to myself and am going to be able to continue to look after myself so I can sustain this level of productivity and excitement.

Writing.

If you were given £10 million tomorrow would you still want to do it?

Yes.

I started writing because it was a release. I have kept diaries on and off throughout the years. Until fairly recently, when I started seriously thinking of moving into a career in writing, the writing came easiest when I was anxious or depressed.

I think too much. I am well known for over thinking and anyone who’s made the mistake of asking me ‘why’ I did something knows that they will get an answer will a full and detailed thought process attached (kind of like the Eggheads on BBC2). My best friend was more than pleased to present me with a Gemini Agate keyring which showed that the Gemini keyword is “I think” (at least I can now blame it on the planets!)

I have also run my twitter feed through Tweetstats.com which told me that “think” was my most used word on Twitter.

As someone whose brain doesn’t understand slowing down, let alone stopping, there has to be some way to get all that stuff out of my head and make things a bit quieter for a while. Writing is my way to do that. When I write I get to empty all those thoughts on to paper. I can edit them and make some sense of them, or alternatively just stick them in a diary and forget about them.

As time has gone on my enjoyment of writing has increased. It has become more than just a way of dealing with negative thoughts and feelings. Writing also is a way of getting my more crazy, interesting, exciting and positive thoughts on paper. It lets me drag my vivid and quirky imagination out of my head and onto the page.

Now I just want to write all the time (I wrote four blogs in one weekend!) Ideally I’d have a column in a newspaper, be churning out magazine features and continuing to blog whilst working on my latest novel. I would do it all for nothing if I didn’t need somewhere to live and funds to buy food. It’s not just the lure of writing itself but also the flexibility, something that is very important to me. Give me a deadline and I will meet it. Tell me how and when to work to meet that deadline and I will get very frustrated (I really should be self-employed!)

I realised I haven’t updated you on novel news recently. I promised I will do so in my next blog, which should be written within the next 48 hours.

In the meantime if you dear readers do know of any column/opinion or feature writing opportunities that I might have a chance at then please do let me know!

p.s. BANANA UPDATE: There was further banana discussion today. This time regarding the smell and health benefits. What have I started?!

That goes for my novel as well. I was meant to be blogging the synopsis last weekend, but when it came to editing what I’d written so far it just didn’t sound right. Although I’m determined to finish this novel there’s no rush.

Actually I’m taking that attitude to life at the moment. Before I moved to Durham I had a hell of a three years and achieved much more than I ever expected I could by the time I was twenty five, but I was also exhausted, stressed and it had taken its toll on my mental health. Now I’m in Durham I have time to unwind and relax and take things at a slower pace for a while. I know eventually I’ll want to increase the pace again, taking things easy doesn’t come naturally to me. For now however for the first time in my life I am giving myself a break and learning a few things about myself…

• I am not superhuman (disappointing I know… there will be no comics made about me)
• I am not perfect
• It’s ok for me to make mistakes
• It’s ok to be emotional and irrational from time to time and not beat myself up about it (again having to acknowledge lack of perceived superpowers!)
• I am not confident 100% of the time
• In certain situations I am shy (this has been the biggest revelation to me, though apparently my best mate figured this out years ago and neglected to tell me!)

Although I have decided to give up my quest to be a cape wearing woman with pants over her leggings – I do secretly hope one day an infected spider will bite me, whilst I’m living in a sewer and learning to fight crime (or something like that!)

p.s. Yes my favourite superheros are Spiderman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman

p.p.s. My favourite Turtle was Michelangelo because he ate pizza!