Better Late Than Never

By Carolyn Crossley

I am so sorry to be late with this blog post, but here we are on the 15th September 2020 and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is looming on a lot of writers’ horizons we have only one and a half months to go until launch. 

If it wasn’t for NaNo I would never have finished my first novel which has taken me more years than I care to remember to do. 

Attending the Oldham Writing Group has led me to an epiphany. My mind was in a quandary. The questions I was asking myself were: 

1. Am I a novelist who writes poems? 

2. Am I a poet who has written a novel? 

I have come to the conclusion I am the latter. Now I have come to that conclusion, I have decided this year I am a poet who writes a novella. I am aiming to write 50,000 in November, which works out at 1,667 words a day. 

I think NaNo is probably best suited to the “pantster” method of writing. A word dump that you can re-write in the edit. So that is what I am doing this year, a new project. 

I have a vague storyline fermenting in my head, two main characters and a villain so what more do I need? 

Oh yes, just the wonderful schedule our NaNo leader, Jacqueline Ward has prepared and then it is poetry on the back burner and off we go, onwards and upwards!