Day five

The epic continues. Okay, so 50,000 words is hardly an epic, but it feels like it right now. Especially as I have narry a notion where the plot is going. On reflection I realise it was a lot more clever than I realised at the time to do a school story, since that gives me a ready made structure to work with.

It's still moving in a fairly dull, slow way. But there was a nice moment of sexual tension yesterday, so I have hopes that the two characters I wanted to get together won't need to be locked in a cupboard after all.

I'm surprised to see that some people have already completed the NaNoWriMo challenge and finished their 50,000 words in the first four days. I can't help feeling that they must be in the wrong place. NaNoWriMo is all about challenging yourself, and for anyone who can complete a month's work in four days, there's clearly not much of a challenge going on. It reminds me of when Scott Kurtz of PVP did the 24 hour comic challenge and used it simply to run up a bunch of strips of the webcomic he had been doing daily for two years. That's not setting yourself a task that will stretch you creatively, it's just getting ahead on deadlines.

Similarly I have to wonder about those who have already completed their NaNo novels. What are they going to do for the rest of the month, sit around and gloat? It's about personal challenge, and if the official challenge is not hard enough then maybe you should be finding a way to reset the bar to a point where it will be a challenge for you.

Not a lot in the way of Harry Potter snarkery lately, other than to make clear that british school dinners rarely resemble anything as tasty or nutritious as can be found at Hogwarts. Indeed, the Harry Potter deconstruction I'm doing for research makes me realise just what a complete fantasy even the most mundane aspects of his school are. Not to mention the pupils we follow through their teenage years who never watch TV, play video games, or think about sex.

It did also come up with a Potter pun of resounding awfulness that I shall share with you now:

"Oh yes,"” The mermaid was saying, "We also have a most popular sport where I come from. It is played underwater, of course, and we have sea creatures instead of balls. We call it Squiddich."