I’m doing NaNoWriMo! You probably already gathered that from the image and the title of this post. But I wanted to say it again. I know it’s halfway through the month, don’t worry, I did start on the first. This is why I haven’t posted much recently because if I have free time, I’m writing.

Reading has also become a thing of the past (for this month anyway) and I do want to say that I will get around to reading the two books I have for review out this month as soon as I can get into reading. I cannot get into reading any books at the moment, which is disheartening. But at least it means more time writing.

Although I would love to achieve it, I’m not looking to write a 50,000 word novel, as that quite honestly, is unrealistic. My first goal was to write more than I did last year (not difficult considering I only wrote 14,341 words) and I achieved that in the early hours of this morning (why are my most productive times between the hours of 11pm and 1am?). So that’s made me very happy.

This is my final year of school, and so obviously the workload is massive as it’s the year of the A levels. AS levels are done (thankfully I passed with high grades – somehow) and now I have to put a load of energy into getting equally good grades in the other half. However the other day I received an unconditional offer from my favourite uni (well, it’s only unconditional if it’s my firm choice – but that’s obviously going to be the case since it’s my favourite uni!) and I feel like I’ve been floating with happiness since. Yes, I’m weird. But can you blame me? I’m going to uni next year. My whole life has led to this (honestly uni has been my goal in life – I’ve always been desperate to go!).

Needless to say, the fact that I have a place for certain takes the pressure off me a lot and means that I’m letting myself prioritise writing a bit more (especially since my course is English Lit and Creative Writing). I’m hoping to write at least 25,000 words this year, if not more (because I’ve planned for more).

The difference between this year and last year is definitely planning. I had no idea how to continue last year with my story, yet so far I’ve planned for at least 42,500 words (I’m working on approximately 2,500 words per chapter basically) and I have ideas for how to continue after that. Whilst I don’t know exactly how it’s going to end, I’m sure I’ll work it out along the way and I have plenty of time before I’ll get to the stage where I’ll be writing it.

Is anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? I know it’s extremely popular amongst authors and I do think that it’s been amazing for me and my confidence with my writing because I hadn’t written much prose for ages. I didn’t think I’d be doing it this year as I had no ideas whatsoever but now I’m 15,000 words in. Not many for some, but a great achievement for me, and I have the rest of the month to go.

If you want to add me on NaNoWriMo then my username is NatalieLC!