It’s been a long time since I wrote fiction. I haven’t stopped dreaming, and making notes; plotting and planning; sketching scenes. But I haven’t actually sat down and really written anything much in quite a long time.

I had meant to use my furlough time back in the early days of the pandemic for writing time. And I did, I suppose. Just not the stuff I’d meant to. The stuff I’d been dreaming of having time to write. I had the time, suddenly, but I was distracted. My craft room also called to me: I’d recently started playing with papercrafts and I had any number of cross-stitch patterns waiting patiently.

Which is to say: I’ve had lots of excuses.

Perhaps what I really need is a reason. And not necessarily because I have a character or a story which simply must be told. But a reason.

Almost ten years ago now (really? Where has the time gone?!), I managed to complete a NaNoWriMo. Very little happened with that draft thereafter, but I managed to type just over 50000 words in one November. And, then, perhaps because I had completed the challenge, that was that. Further attempts at writing, or editing, or plotting, where desultory at best.

I suspect the real excuse was Life Got In The Way.

The need to make money, to keep us from starving. M was studying, an MSc then a PhD, so I was working. (He also worked part-time, I hasten to add. He wasn’t just studying.)

But since I’ve been home with Tiny, now that M is no longer studying but working, I’ve been at a bit of a loose end. I’ve had the OU history module to entertain me, but I’ve not really known what will happen next. Which is not a good feeling, for me. I dislike not knowing. Of feeling a bit all-at-sea, where the world is my oyster and I can do whatever I like. Paralysed by indecision, is how I end up.

Which is rather how I’ve been since I finished that OU module a month or so ago.

And then I saw mention of Camp NaNo on the blogosphere somewhere, and since I’ve been considering a creative writing course as my next step, I thought Camp NaNo would be a good place to begin. Not the marathon target of a novel in a month, but a Couch-to-5K sort of target: of regularly writing fiction every day.

And since I’ve only got a few days before the next Camp NaNo begins (as I write this, it starts in two days), I don’t have the time for meticulous planning – and therefore procrastinating. I just have time to decide on a target – 500 words a day seems doable, combined with completing the fiction chapter of the OU’s introduction to creative writing workbook.

They don’t have to be good words, or necessarily sequential scenes. They just have to be 500 words a day.

And would you look at that: this is just about 500 words, written in one day. Admittedly not fiction, which, again, can have a paralysing effect on the brain, but still. 500 words which I hadn’t planned on writing, and which took only two writing sessions in one day.

Because I’ve only just decided to go camping this July, I haven’t pitched my tent yet, or made any friends on the campsite. I may get around to it by the 1^st, but then again, I may not. Perhaps I’ll see you there. Any other campers out there?