It's Nearly NaNo Time!

It's heading into that time of year again, National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. The aim of which is to spend the thirty days of November writing your socks off to produce a 50,000 word novel.

It's crazy but so much fun.

There's something about getting my box of goodies from the OU that puts me in the frame of mind for starting my NaNo preparations. I suppose it's because until that point I have all the time in the world to be thinking about planning my NaNo so obviously I can't be bothered, the minute I have to think about doing something else my procrastination gene kicks in and I'm ready to do anything but the thing I should be doing.

Why get down to studying and reading set texts when you could be planning fantastic stories and making new friends on the forums?

This year I've got the germ of a story which I'm trying into tease into something substantial. It's actually a story that came to me one day when I was walking with Mr Click and Tara. I've been kind of playing with it ever since but held off writing it because I thought it might make a good NaNovel.

So far things are a little bit fuzzy but I've decided it's going to be a Children's/Young Adult story which is heavily based on Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. The setting will probably be the island where I live because, y'know, write what you know. The characters will be aged around twelve and it'll take place during the school summer holidays.

I know that the main character will be a bit of an outcast named Sean Watson who lives in books and is generally uncool. The story begins when Charlotte Holmes moves in next door. She's the complete opposite of Sean, totally zany and brimming with confidence. She's always involved in some sort of 'play' or fantasy so when Sean points out the similarity in their names Charlotte decides to become a detective.

Somewhere along the way the story will follow along bits of A Study in Scarlet, depending on which ones suit my story. I'm hoping it'll be something a little like Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer and Terry Pratchett's Johnny series of books.

I wish I could be a 'pantser' during NaNo but unfortunately I just can't do it, I have to plan. The first thing I need to figure out exactly what is going to happen in this story!