A winner again! - 29 November 2006

'TO BE CONTINUED' - that was the promise with which I concluded the 50,092 words I wrote during the Mad Month of November 2005.

National Novel Writing Month is the one month of the entire year when I am totally committed to my writing. I picked up the story precisely where I'd left off, which was about 3,000 words beyond the 50,000 I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2005. Writing part 2 of In Your Dreams made for a Mad, Manic, Magical November 2006, culminating in crossing the finish line with 50,701 words. I was so excited that I forgot to add: 'NEARLY THE END'!

This year I went a step further and kept a daily account of my NaNo adventure on my blog, readme2. I also posted excerpts on my NaNoWriMo author pages.

In January, once I've recovered from NaNo and Christmas, I'm going to tell the tail-end of this tale. The writing will resume until I can, very emotionally, type 'THE END'. And then, foolish person that I am, I'll edit the whole lot into a smooth, seamless and - er - factually correct second draft. By next November, I want In Your Dreams to be making its way in world either around agencies or around the web, and I want to start a new novel with NaNoWriMo 2007.

• Excerpts to follow - some time after the Champagne!

Crossing the NaNoWriMo finish line - 28 November 2005

The challenge: write 50,000 words in 30 days. Could I do it? I had a full-time job, a family, other commitments (because I have a hard time saying 'no') - and I had serious doubts.

I was very nearly one of those Nanowrimo participants who signs up, completes an author's profile, creates a novel title and never writes a single word.

But sometimes, you just have to take a leap into the dark.

I wrote. Like someone possessed. And 24 days later, I topped 50,000 words.

It took me two days to get round to feeding my words into Nanowrimo's voracious Validator - only to have it tell me I'd only written 49,850 words! ARGH! I kicked out two more paragraphs, tried again, and viola! A total of 50,092 words was what she wrote.

I'm exhausted, elated - and not done yet. My last three words were 'TO BE CONTINUED'.

• Read a first draft of chapter 1