The 30 Day Novel

I am on Day Two of an intriguing writing exercise.

The idea was brought to me three weeks ago by a monk with a vast mind. He knew that I wanted to write a book, and in our Skype chat he asked me if I knew of the existence of the National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). This mad organisation has been inspiring budding novelists for over a decade. Every November they gather 150,000 or more writers around the globe, and tell them to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

The concept is thus: we all want to write a novel, but the only way to actually do it is to sit down and bash it out. No planning or outlining or day dreaming is going to get us there. When we do make it to the desk, we are crippled by our inner critics and censors. A few paragraphs into a piece, and we become besieged by doubts - so don't write again for a while. No novel will be born from this quick sand of sinking ideas!!

On the contrary - to sit down for 30 days and write anything, simply for the sake of reaching the 50,000 word mark by 11.59pm on November 30th, 2009 - means that we are churning out words. And through this churning, this stream of consciousness purging, all the themes and stories that have been circulating in our deep down mind for the past decade or so, come trickling out. They take a form on the page, sometimes surprising to the point that it makes you want to cry. Sometimes painfully badly written. But right now: Just write - don't edit, don't change anything, don't delete. Just write rubbish and nonsense and out of that raw matter, diamonds will start sparkling and leading you forward.

I'm on Day Two, 4,002 words into the journey, and so far I'm loving it.