A science-y NaNoWriMo

So next week is the start of November, which is many things but importantly to me and therefore this article, it is National Novel Writing Month (aka ‘NaNoWriMo’). Ignore the ‘National’ bit as this is a hangover from when it was a US based thing. It’s now spread worldwide and each year has around 200,000 people taking part. Simply put, NaNoWriMo is a month long challenge with one key goal:

Write a 50,000 word fiction novel (or part of a novel) in one month.

For those without an immediate calculator, that works out to a writing rate of about 1,600 words of a novel a day… for 30 days.

If 1,600 sounds oddly familiar then that is because it’s the writing rate I tried (and succeeded in) writing to a couple of months back when I wrote a short (~12,000) story about Joe. Basically that was me proving to myself that I could actually write that amount of content, if for some utterly insane reason I was to consider trying to do NaNoWriMo.

*cough*

So this month I’ve signed up to try and complete the NaNoWriMo challenge.

During November I am going to try writing a fictional novel about life as a Post-doc. In fact it’s really just a continuation of Joe’s story from my previous writing as he will be the protagonist. So if you liked my jokes about the horror of pipetting, it’ll be more of that. If you don’t, then you should still be interested because in 50,000 there might be other jokes.

FAQ

Why?

Because I kinda want to know if I can. I read like crazy and have always loved books but writing is pretty new to me. Being able to write this blog and get broadly positive feedback has been pretty inspiring and has made me consider maybe doing more.

Okay, why 50,000 words in a month?

Seemed like a good place to start. I write a crap load for the blog and half my problem is fitting it in around other work. So instead of snatching small bits of writing time here and there why not do it all at once!

Will you be posting it on Errant Science?

No. Errant Science has a pretty good focus and this is a bit left field for it.

Can we see it at all?

Yes. Well, maybe… If my trial week taught me anything it’s that I can’t just type out camera-ready prose. What I write needs proofing and more importantly *editing* before seeing the light of day. I will make it available somehow, but just not right away.

What if you don’t manage to do it?

I think the most likely outcome is not managing to do it. This is my first time and I am a very, very new writer. I’ll be pretty pleased with myself if I even get half way! I’m hoping I won’t just give up. If I start to struggle I’ll extend the time and try and make it a little easier but still try to do it in one go.

What about Errant Science? We need our weekly fix!!

Don’t worry, I worked like a demon over October and I have an entire month’s worth of posts already queued up. You won’t go short.

How can I follow how your doing?

Well in addition to the widget that should hopefully be showing on the ErrantScience.com home page, you can also follow my pained journey (I assume) via twitter and I’ll answer any questions about the process through ask.fm.