This is a story about traditions...

Writing my first novel without the competing demands of a full-time job and a blog, was an incredible experience. I had a great deal of help from my girlfriend and my guardian angel, who patiently read my daily efforts and offered a lot of support and encouragement, so that I could complete the project. I had friends and my regular readers following the progress of my draft manuscript as I publicly published it. It was a dream writing project.

I was overconfident for my second novel. I thought that I would easily repeat my achievement, so I set myself a very ambitious challenge. I was somewhat carried away with the notion that I'm a good writer and as such I expected myself to be able to churn out high quality prose with ease. I thought an excellent novel would flow straight onto the page with little or no effort.

I persevered with that second novel for 42,000 words before finally abandoning the project, because it wasn't going to be finished by 30 November, in time to win NaNoWriMo and I was deeply unhappy with what I'd written. I'm quite a perfectionist, but what I'd written was truly abysmal in and in dire need of some serious editing. It embarrassed me that my bad writing was on public display.

My blog writing has become an ingrained habit. I have no difficulty producing an average of 1,200 words per day for this website.

What I hadn't realised is how important it is for me to be able to express myself every day on my blog. I need this outlet. By the end of 30 days - because I'd decided to stop blogging temporarily - I missed my blog so badly I felt like I was dying of heartbreak.

So, this year I'm writing my new novel in private, although I'll share a link with you if you ask nicely. I'm writing without worrying about making my efforts fit for publication. I'm writing for the sheer enjoyment of crafting a story, without worrying about what the public think about it. When I'm finished, if I'm pleased with it then I'll edit it and think about publishing it, but for now it's my own private project.

I've written 1,653 words so far and I'll probably keep you posted about my progress from time to time, because I'm excited about the project and I'm enjoying myself a lot. It's nice not to have the pressure I had last year, even though this is the first year where I'm also working a full-time job and writing my daily blog at the same time, which is quite demanding.

I've picked a story which is allowing me to have a lot of fun. I've abandoned all the restrictions I placed upon myself the previous two years. I'm not worrying about whether or not I'm writing good fiction at this stage... I'm just writing the novel that I want to write. I have complete artistic freedom and I love it.

Having written over 2,000 words today, I'm going to wrap up this shorter-than-usual blog post, feeling like I've done a good day's work.

Tags: #writing #novel #NaNoWriMo #NaNoWriMo18