I dare to dream too!

So. I'm writing a novel. I said it, it's true and now people might know.

I say I'm writing a novel - actually, I'm starting next week. At the moment I'm in the final stages of planning, which mainly appears to have involved very vague plans for 3 main characters and their adventures over the course of the first three-quarters of my story. I've got a good outline for the first few chapters. I've been working on the story in my head for a good few months now, but my evil internal editor has put the brakes on my first couple of attempts at Actual Writing.

The first couple of times I started, I did so without any outlining or planning - I had an idea for a strong opening and I went with it. After 700 words, I would think "Right, that's gone better than I expected... what now?". And my mind was blank. Now I have no excuses...

But why now? November is National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo. If you're reading this, you probably already know that - but on the off-chance that you don't, it's a 'competition' (against yourself), whereby people try to write novels of at least 50,000 words in the month of November; some people somehow manage to write more than one - eek! It's a big challenge, and I don't know if I will 'win'. I expect that I probably won't, and that's important - the key thing for me is to get in to the habit of writing, and to try to do something every day. I don't necessarily believe than NaNoWriMo is the path to good writing, but... It'd be great if I wrote 50,ooo words; it'd be awesome if I wrote 10,000, too though.

Something is better than nothing. Something is chasing a dream, a start, and maybe by the end something to be proud of.