So why was November so busy? Well it was NaNoWriMo - that's National Novel Writing Month - and with it came the challenge of writing a draft novel of 50,000 words or more in the space of 30 days.From November 1 to November 30 thousands of people across the world were frantically writing away to get their manuscripts completed - or at least, get 50,000 words down on paper. And, I'm proud to be able to say, for the second year running I managed to write the full 50,000 words.
I found this year easier than last year somehow - I finished on November 25, rather than finishing on the last day like last year. And the story is one that I actually quite like - although it does need some quite heavy editing and parts will need rewriting and/or writing in the first place where I just wrote in the outline of a chapter.
The story, which at the moment is provisionally called Silent Tears, is about a 15-year-old girl called Jenna Watts. On the surface she seems to be a normal teenager, although her dad is often away from home with work and her mom has to work shifts. But the stress of having to look after her younger brother, working towards her GCSE exams, not having anyone she can tell about the often difficult home situation, and all the usual teenage issues as well, weighs heavily on Jenna and to cope with her feelings she turns to cutting - self-harm - as a way to deal with things.In the course of the story Jenna makes new friends, learns surprising things about her family, and, despite going through some horrible situations when her brother is hurt and people at school find out her painful secret, she manages to come through still standing and better able to face whatever life throws at her.
Hmmm... I've just looked at that paragraph again. Maybe Painful Secrets would be a good title for the story instead?
Anyway, I'll be posting the progress of the editing process up here as I go.
