The All Important First Post

Welcome to Spilt Hot Chocolate! I have a whole page dedicated to who I am and why I decided to do a blog up there *points up to ‘The Author’ tab* so I’m going to try really hard not to repeat that. Essentially, I’ve wanted to blog for a while, but never though I had anything to base a blog on. Now, I do.

But what do you say in the first post of a blog?

Well, it’s a partially NaNoWriMo based blog. Let’s talk about that:

What IS NaNoWriMo? Basically? Well, National Novel Writing Month started out in 1999 between the Master of the University Chris Baty and 20 of his friends. That lazy summer idea quickly spread all over the world and 14 years later is an exercise persued by literally tens of thousands of people. It’s the idea that with a deadline and a whole bunch of people surrounding and supporting you, anyone can get that all important first novel draft down. It doesn’t have to be “amazing” (and, let’s admit it, it probably won’t be) but that’s not what matters. What matters is getting the words down on paper and worrying about the amazing part later. If you do this for enough years, it’s a very fun way to learn how to write a novel.

NaNoWriMo is a huge part of my life and has been for a while. I know there are critics out there who think encouraging people to write a novel in a month is a horrible idea. But NaNoWriMo isn’t just about writing a novel in a month for me anymore. It’s about so much more. The community and support from people who are effectively strangers, but become friends within 30 short days is something which is hard pressed to be matched. It’s a great thing to be able to walk onto an Internet forum and instantly find a 100,000 people who want to help you with your endevour and who share your insanity. (‘Cause, let’s be honest, we’re all kinda nuts.)

I have made good friends through NaNo – both online and people I’ve been lucky enough to meet in person after I met them online. I had the fantastic experience of being the Municipal Liasion for Manchester (England) in 2011 and, after moving to London earlier this year, I have had the good fortune to be asked by the London MLs to join their team for 2012. MLing made NaNo a whole different experience for me and gave me the added challenge of monitoring a whole group of writings, as well as my own work.

I can’t forsee me not doing NaNo. Even if I get my dream and become published, have a family and all that, I’d still like to think I’d do NaNo. Because my year wouldn’t be complete without it.

9 novels, 4 regions, 2 years of MLing.

Bring on year number 10!