I don’t often post about my fiction writing here- I tend to keep that on my writing blog, which you can find here if you’re interested.
However, in massive and exciting news, I’m publishing my first full-length novel on February 1st: The Scandalous Viscount. It’s a regency m/m romance with steamy scenes, pining and interesting characters. If you’d like to read more about it, you can click here, or you can preorder it here from Amazon.
Thank you so much for your support!
Writing Round Up is a semi-regular post about other places I have written things recently.
Articles
My Migraines Are Ruining My Life– a very personal exploration into what it’s like for me to live with my migraines
Book Reviews
High Hopes by Sue Lilley– I reviewed this for Online Book Club and mostly enjoyed it!
I haven’t actually written very much in what feels like ages. I am hoping that by posting these round ups, I can motivate myself to actually write more!
At the start of April, I was filled with excitement and enthusiasm to complete my Camp NaNoWriMo novel. My motivation was ready, my planning was in place (vaguely- I mostly just make brief notes and go) and I was determined to hit fifty thousand words.
At the time of writing this post, I am currently twenty thousand words behind.
Am I capable of catching up? By the end of the month? Plausibly; I have by known to do five thousand words in a day, and with nine days left to go, that would get me there.
I’m not going to push myself, though. Let’s be honest: life is weird and horrific at the moment. I have it easier than a lot of other people, but I’m still finding simply existing to be a total nightmare.
If it gets done, excellent. I think I’m more likely to finish this novel by the end of May at my current pace. A few years ago, I would have been devastated to miss the target I’d set myself, and I might have even been tempted to give up on the project entirely.
Now, I’m more kind to myself, and if you’re reading this, I urge you to be kind to yourself, too.
Last year, in 2019, I wrote an entire novel in April. Fifty thousand words, which are sort of linked together with a plot. This works out at just over 1666 words a day.
I’ve always wanted to write a novel. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. When I was a tiny child, my teacher used to let me write stories instead of taking part in maths class. (Irresponsible, possibly, although I did eventually get an A in GCSE maths, so it worked out for the best.) I used to spend hours playing The Sims and imagining little lives for my pixelated pals, crafting elaborate and dramatic stories in my head.
However, the first novel I ever finished was the one I wrote last April, at the age of 28.
It is still in need of editing. I keep meaning to go back to it, but life has been fairly wild for the last year. It is only just starting to settle down. Later this year, I intend to go through it and edit it. I’d like to publish it, I think.
The point of this post (and I have, classically, managed to write several paragraphs without addressing it at all) is to talk about Camp NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo!) is in November, and I have yet to manage to write a novel in November, despite committing to it pretty much every year. However, they run a couple of smaller events in the year as well- Camp NaNoWriMo. The idea is that you set your own goal, and so last year I decided I was going to write fifty thousand words.
And this year I’ve decided I’m going to do it again. I will probably write a bit more about my project later, but I’ve been obsessed with numbers stations after hearing a show on Radio 4 about them, so it’s about them, and some other stuff.
If anyone wants to add me on the NaNoWriMo website, my profile is here. (The stats are wrong and I don’t know how to fix them!)
absolutely cole 