NaNoWriMo Ate My Brain!

It's November, which means it's National Novel Writing Month, commonly called NaNoWriMo. Head over to NaNoWriMo.org for more information, but basically it's a 'competition' for people to try to write a 50,000 (plus) word novel in 30 days.

This is the first time I'm trying it, because it's the first time I've really had a coherent story that would potentially be that long and wasn't something I'd already written (you're supposed to start a NEW work of fiction on November 1st, not rewrite or continue something you've already done.)

I'm invoking the Luddite Clause and hand writing my novel, in a notebook, with a fountain pen. Yep, I'm not only trying this for the first time, I'm going old school! I'm up to 12,474 words so far, and have filled more than half of a small (5.5" x 3.5") hard-backed Piccadilly notebook (square ruled, which is MUCH better than lined for my tiny writing) and figure I'm going to be using at least one more. Luckily I stocked up before Borders closed...

I'm also using my Lamy Vista with Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun ink. It's particularly fitting for the novel I'm working on, which has to do with Shadows and shades of grey... (I'd bought a bottle of this lovely blue-shaded grey ink, thinking that I'd never use the whole thing. Except that I've used a full Lamy converter's worth every day since I started this. The level of ink in my bottle is actually starting to lower!)

The picture is the notebook I've been writing in - I started at the back because I'm a leftie...