During October 2005 I discovered the National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) challenge. A good friend told me she was going to attempt it and asked would I like to give it a go.

I said no, several times. I resisted because it sounded completely nuts. I mean, why would you do that to yourself? It's like choosing to run a marathon, I can admire someone who wants to but it's not something that appeals to me in the least.

But she nagged, she cajoled, she all but begged me to keep her company doing this mad thing and still I said no. It was too much work at a time when I really didn't need it.

Then, just before midnight on October 31st she said, "Go on, I dare you."

I signed up and started writing....

NaNo challenges each participant to write a short novel of 50,000 words in just 30 days, starting on November 1st and ending on November 30th and it runs every year. It breaks down to 1,667 words every day. Doesn't sound much? It's a couple of hours work at least.

It's intense, it's hard and sometimes you end up writing complete drivel. But it's fun, it unleashes that creative flow and you stop thinking about plot and character, focusing on word counts until your brain starts to leak out of your ears, and still you can't stop.

I did it that year and The Portal Between was begun. I didn't stop writing and by Easter 2006 I'd got an 80,000 word novel that I went over and edited.