Just a few minutes to go until the start of two challenges for the duration of November. The first is easy enough – to grow a moustache in the name of Men’s health awareness. Movember begins on Tuesday 1st November, clean shaven, and ends on 30th November, having cultivated and maintained a stylish moustache. There are a few rules to follow to ensure you don’t drift into “beard” territory, but it’s pretty straightforward.
I’ve done it in previous years, but this is the first time I’ve officially registered. I’ll be doing it with work colleagues, and I’m hoping to raise money this time around, so if you want to donate, go right ahead.
The other, bigger, challenge is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo to give it’s slightly snappier name). The challenge here is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This amounts to around 1,667 words every day. Given my current writing speed has averaged about 2,800 a month, this will require a significant increase in my output if I’m to succeed, but I’m hoping it will encourage me to write freely without questioning every little detail, or re-editing sections rather than ploughing on with things, as has been the case while writing my first novel.
That particular work has obviously had to go on the back burner while I participate in this challenge, but I think I’ve got a reasonable idea to start with so we’ll soon see how much mileage I can squeeze out of it. You’ll be able to follow my progress on my NaNoWriMo profile. The first question is: to join the midnight sprint, or have an early(ish) night and begin in earnest on the morning commute to work?
