A writer's life for me

I am NaNoWriMo-ing this year. It’s my third year having a bash at what feels to me an utterly sadistic challenge, wherein you boil a complex and intricate process down to a month’s worth of writing, that only really secures months and months of editing in the aftermath. And yet, here I am, bashing out a story that I hadn’t planned to write – largely because I decided to join the NaNoWriMo bandwagon the day before the blessed event was due to start. I first tried to do NaNoWriMo in the middle of my MA degree; massive mistake, lasted a few days, developed a semi-decent character only to abandon the poor man and never write him again. The second time was last year; I was in the final year of my PhD (brilliant timing, yes, okay) and the horrendous editing for that had left me with creative energy to burn. I wrote every day, averaging at around 1700 words a pop, and I had a short story collection by the end of it. This year, I am writing a thing. I don’t want to use the word nove...