NaNoWriMo

So I decided to take the plunge and sign up for NaNoWriMo.
I always write better with the pressure of a goal and a 50,000 word novel seems like one heck of a goal with a large dollop of pressure on top.
November is hardly an ideal month for me with my son's birthday right at the beginning - I was bound to get off to a bad start. But even if I only manage a few thousand words it is ,as my grandmother would have said, better than a kick in the teeth.

I am known as a bit of a daydreamer many because as an only child I often had to find ways to occupy myself.
Sometimes I would pretend that I had to give an accurate description of some passerby to the police. Instead of a generic "She had nice eyes" I would use the words to draw their exact shape and colour and position in her face.
Other times I would examine a political or philosophical point of view, discussing it , in my head, taking first one side then the other, trying to set forth a reasonable logical, argument so I could understand my own opinion on the subject.
Due to travel sickness I can't read or knit while travelling so I examine the people around me or create stories to wile away the time.

As I got older I tried to focus my thoughts rather than leaving nebulous impressions and vague stories floating around inside my head - I began to put my thoughts into words.
At first when I managed to write down my musings I would incorporate them into letters for friends and relatives. As the letters got longer and longer people began to say I should write a book.

But a whole book takes a much more concerted effort than scribbling down a few impressions on the back of an envelope. And I am so used to translating my thoughts into indecipherable handwriting on a rough piece of paper that sat in front of a keyboard and screen my mind freezes or becomes banal, describing the world in ways that would send a chronic insomniac into a coma.
But practice makes perfect and even if this first attempt at a novel turns out crass and boring it will be a start. I can always edit it afterwards and at least I won't have to contemplate that petrifyingly blank screen.