Weekly Rundown: And so it begins...

Wherever possible I've started NaNo at midnight, staying up ridiculously late with copious amounts of sugar and a selection of films to keep me up (The Sound of Music and Tinkerbell among some of the recent years' viewing material). I've not done that this year, so I feel as though I'm behind, even though it's only just started and I'm not technically behind yet.

I'm used to having my target for the day down before bed, whereas today I had to hammer out as much as I could as soon as I woke up. It's a slightly different approach to before but I'm sure I'll make it work for me.

So far I'm at 1,768 words and I'm planning at least another hour of writing later on, possibly with a few word wars thrown in for good measure. I probably won't reach my 10,000 word target that I usually have on the first day of NaNo, but I'm okay with that. I'm going to take it slow and steady this year and help out the people I've signed up to mentor (you only get one first NaNo after all).

I've also not done as much concrete planning as I've done in the past. Normally I write pages and pages of notes before I get started, but this year I've not written down as much. I've been carrying around a lot of ideas with me and I have a whole bunch of scenes in my head.

Normally I'm a very linear writer but I have a funny feeling I might end up jumping around a bit from one scene to another. I'm using ywriter rather than Word which should help with that.

Aside from NaNo stuff, I've been doing most of my Christmas shopping this week. Last Sunday I went onto Amazon and ordered most of Mr Click's main presents (as well as something for my step-dad, which I think he'll appreciate), then during a drip to Glasgow I found a present for my Nan too. I'm very impressed as I seem to have gone from feeling completely disorganised to almost ready. I've got maybe three big presents left to get, then it's just small things and stocking fillers.

Yesterday we started our traditional movie countdown to Christmas. Halloween (or NaNoween as I like to think of it) is always the day when we watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, since it is set in Halloween Town. We'll be following this up during the week with some of our Not Quite Christmas films. In the past we've worked out a schedule for them, but this year we're doing a lucky dip, picking names out of a hat for the film we're going to watch that day. The first one out of the pot is Paddington. The only one excused from the lucky dip is Nightmare Before Christmas because Halloween.

Oh and on the subject of Halloween, I got dressed up for work on Friday.

Not too bad for £2 plus what I managed to drag out of my wardrobe.

I was going for a creepy doll look, but the mask didn't have a mouth hole, hence the face paint so I was still in-costume when I took it off to talk. I did get a toffee apple for my trouble.

We even had trick or treaters this year too. In the last four years no one has shown up, then we got a couple of our neighbours' kids come along. I was woefully unprepared and had to rifle through the kitchen cupboard to let them have a chocolate bar each. Next year I must make sure I have a good stash of sweets in.

Did you dress up for Halloween? Share your photos.

And are you NaNoing this year? Feel free to add me as a buddy on the site (I'm Caitak on there) and share your progress in the comments.