When I first heard of NaNoWriMo I had no clue what it was about. It sounded like a game of some sort and then Surviving Jonkersville explained it to me in her blog comments and I was like, “What!? You sign up to write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days?!”

My mother thought me crazy, my son had faith in me, my dad said I won’t get to 3 000 words, my friends believed in me, and well, I just thought, let me give this a try.

At 10 000 words, I had nothing left to say. Then the imaginable happened! The story changed itself, more characters were created and some decomposed bodies were found!

Then I got my 25 000 words, half-way, and it felt as if the story was ready to end – especially after I attended the VEP workshop a week ago, that completely put a spanner in the works!

I hardly had any time to write during the week, so had to keep my Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons open. It didn’t help that it was end of year nativity plays, bike races and birthday parties on weekends! The kids’ calendar REALLY kept be busier than usual.

Some weekday mornings I would wake up at 2/3am and start keying out a few paragraphs on my trusty old BlackBerry. Some evenings my eyes would be so tired that I’d type with my eyes close while resting my head against my pillow – yes, I’ve got skill – the only problem with doing this was that the next day I’d read some of my paragraphs and it was complete hogwash, like I typed my dreams instead of the darn story!!

The poor kids really suffered when I went into writer’s mode! I couldn’t stand their interruptions, their fighting and shouting. Poor poppets, they really suffered my creative mommy shutdown AND meltdown. Luckily my parents were around most weekends, so I could lock myself in my bedroom for an hour or two!

My objective this weekend was to WIN this! I woke up with 7 000 words still to go, a story tethering on spurts of plotting. Finally at 21:06, and two Savannah’s later, I checked my word count, 50 119!!

Tomorrow I’ll start editing my 98 page novel. A daunting task that I’m afraid may see me change many things in the story. I don’t know what the next steps are in the NaNoWriMo process, but I am really proud of myself!

For the first time ever I worked on one story while writing two to three chapters simultaneously, not wanting to lose my plot bunnies! I really enjoyed this experience – I went from having a title in my head with only two characters, to a 98 page novel with a few gruesome murders, a catatonic mother and characters that created themselves as the story evolved.

Silencing Crime, a novel born out of curiosity and self-belief.