The Big Write

Tomorrow the Big Write starts. 50,000 words in 30 days. See www.nanowrimo.org I have a kind of title and a main plot idea. Here's a very short synopsis:


Ann's partner walks out and her job disappears in yet another government restructuring. So she leaves New Zealand for a tour of relatives and art galleries in Europe and the United States, thanks to a legacy from a childless uncle. To say that travel broadens the mind falls a long way short of describing her experiences.


I've used this idea in a short story that has been read only by my partner and my writing group.

I'll hardly have got going when I'm off to Melbourne for six days to see a friend and my son, without a laptop. (I don't have one.) Might do some plot planning. Or write by hand in my journal. Might get some additional inspiration, you never know.

I finished Wolf Hall. It's well worth the effort — it's a brick of a book, with over 500 pages. The way Hilary Mantel wrote it continued to fascinate me and the story got even better. By inventing (I assume) some minor characters, she makes the story really come alive. It's a more nuanced and more sympathetic portrayal of Cromwell than the one in the television show The Tudors. Henry's bad leg, that was in one episode I saw, features in the later part of the book.