A New Challenge

My new project will be based on a travel-journal

An email landed in my inbox from WordPress last week, looking at the best daily and weekly blogs of 2012.

It got me thinking whether I could do something like that. I have struggled to even write a blog post every week since I started my WriterMummy blog back in March 2012. Maybe I need a challenge to keep me motivated next year. Something like NaNoWriMo, to force me to write and post daily.

Except I don’t blog unless I have something to say and some weeks nothing much happens, particularly when I’m writing a new novel. Then I thought, why not use a first draft of a novel for my blog?

I originally came up with the idea of 365-365 – writing a book in instalments with each daily entry being 365 words long. That would challenge my daily writing and my need to be more concise. But I suspect the second 365 might be more than I can manage so I’m going to stick with trying to post something every day, starting with a new project.

The story needs to lend itself to short episodes so I came up with the concept of travelling. Ten or twelve years ago I travelled around New Zealand and kept a diary. Recently I helped my sister self-publish her travel journals from America to New Zealand.

I don’t want to do New Zealand though, as that feels a bit close to home (and a bit like cheating, as I’d probably reuse chunks of my diary.) So then I thought what about someone travelling around the UK staying in hostels? The next thought was Why? And how would I integrate a story arc (or even a character arc)?

I came up with the idea of a main character who is a bit smug with her own life. Maybe she has a sister who is a single mother or a brother facing divorce and she’s happy with her middle-class existence, with her designer shoes and handbags and pristine flat. How would she cope staying in youth hostels? Then I had to figure why she would choose to visit youth hostels, which made me decide it would be part of her job. Maybe she’s an advertising executive and her client has asked her to visit the hostels to improve the advertising campaign. Maybe she will write some of her posts on Facebook and Twitter. I’m sure I’ll figure some more out before I write my first post tomorrow!

As you can see, I hope my posts will cover how my writing ideas develop (I’m a pantser mostly, so plot as I go) and how I go about research. As I haven’t visited many hostels in the UK I think the YHA site and Google Maps will be my friends.

Fingers crossed I’ll manage to keep up with my challenge, but if not at least I’ve given it a go! See you in 2013 for episode one.

Happy New Year!