12 Years of Cambridge Nanowrimo

I've been doing Nanowrimo for a while, and feel it's a good time to share some observations. 

First of all, congratulations to all those who have just finished! No matter how many words you've written, it's more than you had in October, so well done.

For those who don't know, Nanowrimo is a worldwide event in which people attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Reaching the target is known as "winning", but it's a contest only with yourself; nobody checks on the words you've written. Your fellow Nanowrimo participants are there for solidarity and moral support.

The novel will almost certainly be largely rubbish, and that's the point. The idea is to put aside all the angst, self-doubt and perfectionism that plague us, and get on with the act of creating something. You can edit later (and it will need a lot of editing, if you want it in a fit state for publication).

I've been a part of the Cambridge Nanowrimo group since 2006, so this is my 12th season here. Next spring I'm moving to Toronto, Canada; I may remain part of the group in spirit, but in body I'm going to be elsewhere. So it seems like a good time to look back, and see if I can share any wisdom from along the way.

Libraries and Inspiration

One day I wondered what happened to Martyn Godfrey; Google told me he passed away more than fifteen years ago. It was one of those weird, uncomfortable moments the Internet makes possible. I felt surprised, saddened, and irrationally guilty I hadn't found out earlier. I hadn't thought much about him for more than twenty years, but he made a big difference to me as a child.

Some context is needed, for those who may not know who Godfrey was. Martyn Godfrey was born in Birmingham, England in 1949. He moved to Canada at the age of eight, worked as a teacher, and had a successful career writing childrens' books, largely fantasy and science fiction. In 1989, he was the Edmonton Public Library’s writer-in-residence.

Old Strathcona branch of the Edmonton Public Library.
Source: Wikipedia

Godfrey passed away in 2000. He was only fifty-one years old; he would be sixty-six now. He left us tragically young, but he gave joy and inspiration to a great many people. A copy of his eulogy is here.

The eulogy mentions the dedication in Godfrey's book The Last War, and just that dedication line brought a lot of the story back to me. Most of all though, I remember Godfrey not for anything he wrote, but for something he did.

Nanowrimo victory

At the start of this month, I signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I'm pleased to say I have succeeded in its objective, and written 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November. I've even done it with one day to spare.

I bashed out roughly 11,000 words on the 29th of November alone, so this is not a high-quality piece of writing. If you said it was mad to attempt this in the first place, alongside baby care, cat wrangling, and a full time job, I would not disagree. But there's a strange kind of masochistic satisfaction to having done it. I do have a better idea how my story will work, if I decide to develop it further.

Regular blogging will resume next week, I need a rest from writing anything that's not strictly necessary.

Edit 2015-12-01: This makes my fifth Nanowrimo win: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, and now 2015.

If anyone's interested, this year's opus is a science fiction tale with working title The Great Beyond. Main characters include a cynical, disillusioned spaceship captain and treasure hunter; an aristocrat's servant who is not all she seems; and a soul eleven thousand years old in a body which is ten years younger than it should be.

It would be hard to overstate the amount of work this needs before it's fit to see the light of day. But I like the setting and some things about the characters and plot, so I might try and move it forward. It's the same science fiction background I tried to use for Nanowrimo in 2012 and 2014. Both those attempts crashed out long before reaching the 50,000 word target, so this is some kind of progress.

Blog break for Nanowrimo

Once again, I'm planning to take a blog break for November to concentrate on Nanowrimo. Cute Cat Friday will continue as normal and I'll be back to posting in December.

See last year's post for a description of what this is all about. As it turns out, last year I was distracted and blogged more or less at normal pace, but I'm hoping to stay a little more focused this time.

1st Blogiversary

As of today, I've been writing this blog for a year! Thanks to all my readers.

My most viewed posts are as follows:

1. Death and Facebook: Facebook's business model is to mine our emotions for profit, and its algorithms do not care if anyone is hurt in the process. Even when it works "correctly", it circulates some astoundingly thoughtless remarks. This post has the highest number of pageviews, by far; many from a comment on Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty by Eric Meyer.
2. Waste of Space: An Open Letter to Nigel Farage: Denouncing the odious leader of UKIP, on an occasion when he claimed immigrants like myself are literally a waste of space. 
3. Scotland's Vote 23: Yes or No: My final summary of the debate on Scottish independence, the day before the referendum. I tried very hard to make it compact, informative and even-handed, and I think I largely succeeded.
4. Cute Cat Friday 2015-01-09: Belle: I don't know why this particular one is so popular, but isn't she a beautiful cat? (Photo appears below.)
5. Scotland's Vote 7: The SNP Disparity: Written two months before the referendum vote, and looking at the disparity between support for the SNP and support for independence. Nationalist myth-making aside, this points to the best explanation of why Yes lost.

I'm enjoying this space to comment and rant about the things which interest me, so here's to many more years of blogging.