No matter how many times I tell myself that I am too busy to do Nanowrimo, I always end up doing it. This year, with my first book published and another two on the burners, I tried to persuade myself I am too tied up writing non-fic for novelising.
Around mid-October I started to think about my fiction writing style and how good it would be to experiment with first person present. I thought back to when I first started Nanowrimo and how I had decided to write a Bridget Jones style chick lit novel as that would probably be more marketable than what was in my head.
That was five years and four novels ago. I persisted with women’s fiction, my last Nano offering being a sarcastic attempt to write a sympathetic main character. I’ve had some excellent feedback from agents, yet none of them have taken my novels as there has always been an ‘unusual’ element to them. So in a lot of ways I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place – my innate desire to write harsh reality and my knowledge that cosy, funny stories sell.
So, this year I’m going for the burn. I’m going for the whole gritty, real, poverty-situated misery novel. There will be lots of sex and swearing, lots of crime and mystery and, in celebration of my recently elevated status to Chartered Scientist, a backdrop of quantum physics and probability theory.
The novel will have a working title of ’23 Acacia Road’ and the main character is Katrina Williams. The ‘invisible’ main character will be Edith Small. My main ethos when writing the novel is to explore the difference between living and surviving. In this book it I’m going to try to show that the extent to which we can afford to live in a metaphor is proportionate to how far we are away from just surviving because that’s all we can do.
So, let the writing commence! For the first time in five years I can’t make the first Nano meet up in Manchester, but to my fellow Manchester writers, have a great time! I’ll join you when I can on the Nano forum and on Facebook. To my many other writing friends, see you on the other side, 50000+ words better off.
This years novel sounds brilliant!
There is a place for chick lit (I adore the Shopaholic) series but personally, the real gritty stuff is what keeps me reading until the end of a book and it’s also what leaves me wanting more after the last word.
Good luck with Nano, I’m giving it a go for the first time.
Wow, Jacqui, this idea sounds like an absolute winner already – can’t wait to read some of it – good luck and see you on the forums (if we have the time!) x
I love how you really pay attention, even to things nano related.
Looking forward to hearing about your progress and the disc improvement…
I want to read this year’s novel. Definitely. Good luck with it. Sounds fantastic, and a lot more true to you.