Of Ashbourne Blood- NaNoWriMo 2011- Day 1

Hello there my dears. Yes, it's November, and we all know what that means. It's NaNoWriMo season. The season where I most likely to be found desperately typing nonsense to bump up my word count.

"And now my Main Character's going to recite the entirety of Edgar Allen Poe's  The Raven..."

So far I'm 869 words and counting. I think I've given myself a little more of a challenge than I bargained for this year- I'm writing a 'Period Drama' novel. With some supernatural elements. And a mystery. Oh dear.

But before I really get nattering about all that I should probably mention that I eventually sent something off to the paper for their A Piece of Your Life writing competition. It was a very short, atmospheric kind of piece about my grandparents' old house. I tried more to get a sense of place in it than any sort of action. I'm not sure I'm going to even be a runner-up but I'm happy that I sent something off to my first writing competition. Considering seeing if I can find more competitions to enter- but probably not at the same time that I do NaNo. NaNo is a challenge all on its own.

So you can find my over at NaNoWriMo.org under the alias of ninjapirategirl. My novel this year is called Of Ashbourne Blood and is narrated by Phoebe Ashbourne and tells the story of her and her two sisters.

It's 1892 and Lady Phoebe Ashbourne's sister, Emmeline, is getting married.

This seems like just another regular occurance in Victorian England, even in the county of Derbyshire. But when the girls approach their grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Gastgern, with their younger sister Delphine they find out that there's something much more sinister and demanding in store for Ashbourne women who hope to marry. A curse stalks the Ashbourne line and the girls must solve three ancient riddles to save Emmeline from the same fate as their young mother.

But even darker secrets are waiting to come to light as the Ashbourne sisters go cross-country in their search for the answer to the Gastgern Hall riddles.

It's very different from anything I've written before but that's what I always try to do with NaNo, challenge myself with something completely new. I've planned this one out a lot more than last year, probably because I feel I have to with the riddles and all the mystery. With things like that if I don't know what's going on or how it's going to end then it just becomes a big jumbled mess.

Then again, it could still become a big mess. I forsee myself struggling to keep within the language of the time period whilst still telling an engaging story.

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling and get on with writing.