NaNoWriYo: write a novel in a year

You should have written 49,452 words by the end of today.

I've written before about how badly I got on with NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Each November loads of people sign up to a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. I wonder what proportion succeed? For one thing, November is a terrible month for many people, especially teachers. August would be ideal, November is possibly the worst. I know I could get up half an hour before I go to bed and write, but let's face it, that ain't going to happen.

Anyway, while social media is awash with New Year's Resolutions, which I hate almost as much as New Year's Eve, I had an idea: I have loads of ideas and unfinished novels, so what about trying to write a novel not in a month, but in a YEAR.

It works out to JUST 137 WORDS A DAY. Much more realistic than NaNoWriMo's 1613 words a day. Not going out? You can start tonight. This web page automatically updates with your target word count each day.

With NaNoWriYo you write 600 fewer words in a week than NaNoWriMo would have you write in a day.

Sure, a year sounds like a long time, but it's about 9 years since I actually completed any proper fiction writing, so what's another year?

C'mon we can do this! Fire up your word processor, get typing. Then stop almost immediately. It'll feel great.

Off we go...

It was a dark and stormy night... pic.twitter.com/f5G0lmZTrt
— PEANUTS (@Snoopy) July 30, 2013