It's NaNoWriMo Time!!

Joining us today is Evie Gaughan, and she is sharing with us her plans for NaNoWriMo which I am sure many of you are currently following.  After a busy weekend combined with a cold, my NaNoWriMo word count stands at zero, but it will creep up a little later on today. 

The hurdle from the end of book one to the start of book two can often be a difficult one, so without further ado, let's hand over to Evie to hear about how she is managing that process and using NaNoWriMo as a way to focus.

The weather is getting chilly, Halloween has come and gone and there’s nothing much to look forward to until Christmas – no better time to write a novel!  November is the perfect time for National Novel Writing Month.  Writers all over the world can hibernate for 30 days and focus solely on trying to string together 50,000 words of a novel in a writing frenzy.

This is my first year taking part in the NaNoWriMo challenge and I am hoping to write the first draft of my second novel in one jam-packed, all-consuming month.  I can imagine myself in November, emerging from my literary cave, blinking in the bright Christmas lights wondering who I am, what I’m doing here, and resembling the missing link!  Still, I am looking forward to the experience for several reasons.

As many self-published authors are aware, it can be difficult to move on from the first novel because you get so caught up in the marketing of your book.  NaNoWriMo seems like the perfect spring board to move on – although you’ll have to ask me how I feel about that again when it’s all over!  Also, because you only have one month, I think it frees you up as a writer to abandon your usual writing technique.  This will be particularly interesting for me, as it took about 18 months to write my first novel, so I’m not sure how I’ll cope with not having time to edit as I go along.

Writing can also make for a very solitary life.  With NaNoWriMo, for one month of the year at least, you know there are thousands of people around the world sharing in your misery (did I say misery?  I meant creativity), which would warm the cockles of any lonely writer’s heart.  What’s more, you can connect with fellow authors on the forums to share ideas, inspiration and have the odd moan.  You can even meet up with real live people in your area for write-ins etc, so it offers a community feel to an experience that is often quite isolating.

Another benefit of taking part is the deadline and the discipline it takes to stick to it.  Being self-published means it’s oh so easy to avoid, ignore and forget deadlines.  Working from home means that the most mundane chores suddenly become an irresistible distraction; browsing the internet for funny cats becomes ‘work’.  It can be a challenge to maintain momentum when writing, especially when things aren’t going well and you feel like giving up.  That’s why I’m looking forward to signing up to NaNoWriMo, because it means I have to stick to my targets.  Not only that, but you have a whole team of pep-talkers, coaches and fellow writers cheering you on through each and every stage of your writing, which frankly never happens for the other eleven months of the year, so I’m planning to take full advantage. 

At the very least, I will have made a start on my second novel and as the website says “Your story matters!”  So enough procrastinating, it’s November… let the fun and games begin!

Evie Gaughan - Bio

 

Evie Gaughan is an Irish author based in Galway, a bohemian city that nurtured her creativity from childhood and provides much of the inspiration for her debut novel, The Cross Of Santiago. 

After completing a diploma in Marketing, Evie spent several years travelling between France and Canada before returning home to become a writer.  She has since published several short stories, poems and feature articles for local and national publications.
Currently working on her second novel, Evie's other passion in life is painting and she has a collection of work on exhibit in a local gallery. 

 

Follow Evie on TWITTER and FACEBOOK