A Year of Learning - NaNoWriMo

 

Also known as, National Novel Writing Month. It's a whole community of people online who every November take up the challenge of writing a novel in 30 days. The exact format of the challenge is to write 50,000 words in November by writing 1,667 words a day, every day! It does seem like a tricky task, especially for me who has only ever written very short stories but I'm determined to give it a good try.

There are lots of resources for would-be writers on the site (https://nanowrimo.org/nano-prep-101) from quizzes to find out what kind of writer you are to forums full of other NaNoWriMo attempters to a mini course leading you through preparing for November.

I started preparing using the online course in mid September as I felt nervous about not being ready since it's my first time. There are some really great tasks to complete. 

I especially enjoyed the character development. I had a lead person in mind but this task forced me to think about her a lot more and explore what kind of person she was. It's going to make her seem more solid to me when I start describing her in my writing.

The last 2 sections had some really helpful ideas for organising yourself ready for a large time commitment in November. Plenty of things I hadn't even considered so I feel more prepared definitely.

After the course I declared my project on the site and browsed the forums to check out what others were doing. There were lots of links to YouTube videos sharing tips for first timers which was very helpful and put my mind at rest on lots of issues.

Another thing I did was to get a feel for how much 1,667 words was. I sat down and wrote mostly gibberish about myself into a word counter until I got to 1,667. It was a lot more than I'd thought! Roughly 2 pages in Word. It took me about 40 minutes to write but I didn't have to think about what I wrote so I expect it'll take much longer when I'm writing a story.

Well, I'm all ready I think and November is almost here. I've finished tweaking my outline so I know mostly how the story should go. I'm nervous, this is the first thing I've done in ages that I feel likely to fail at. Yikes!

The day before I was a physical and mental wreck. I wanted to back out and do something else. I felt sure I wouldn't be able to do it and like I was setting myself up for failure. But not even trying is failure too so before I went to bed I pinned a word counting site to my browser and opened a blank Word file saved to my desktop titled 'Survival of the Fattest' which is the title of my novel.

November 1st at 8.09am I started writing and apart from googling how long the Great Wall of China is, I didn't stop until 9.32am. I'd written 1,882 words! It was such a relief. I'm sure not every session was going to be that easy but I've made a start. Thank God. I've no idea how good it'll be or even if I spaced out the dialogue properly, but I've written it. That's it done until tomorrow. I copy and pasted from the word counter into my Word file ready to start again on the 2nd day.

Now I'm a week in and it's going surprisingly well. I've written 11,920 words and earned some NaNoWriMo achievements. I've had to be strict with myself about getting my writing done first thing when I get up which has changed my daily routine a bit but I think it's best to write when I feel fresh (this hardly ever is me on a morning!). I spend some time thinking about how the story is going when I'm doing things like cleaning my teeth or washing up so that when I sit down to write I usually know what's going to happen next. I haven't yet sat down and got stuck with what to write but as the story progresses things build up as you have to remember perfectly everything that has happened previously. I've made a few notes about people in the book as I go to keep it in my mind.

Having JD around to ask for advice, talk through story ideas or just to tell what's happening is great. I feel nervous about him reading my writing as he's already written 5 books and they're great but I'll worry about that when it's finished. I'm putting all those kind of worries out of my mind and just getting on with telling the story for now. 

I'm two weeks in and officially halfway there! This week has been more difficult than the first because I'm trying to bring the story along at a good pace and have it all make sense. I had a panic mid-week that I didn't have enough story to see out 50k words but I think I've got over that. I'd kind of hoped that I'd be a bit ahead by now but I'm pretty much on track with just 447 spare words! I think the next week will be ok but I'm dreading the last week. I think finishing the story will be the hardest part as everything else leads up to that point so it feels important.

The NaNoWriMo site has a nice statistic section too. Here are my my halfway stats:

Anyway, I'm proud of myself for getting this far so I'll just stick at it and see where it leads!

I've passed week 3 now and things are getting trickier. 

I'm still on track but I'm running out of story faster than I hoped. I'm not sure I can stretch out my outline to reach 50 thousand words. I'm trying to think of another thing that can happen because other than that I'll have to work my way through the book and flesh out some scenes to give more detail. Writing this fast and to a specific amount of words daily seems an unnatural way to do it. If I ever write another book I'll be glad to do it in a more relaxed way and take my time!

As I get closer to the end the worries of whether my book is any good are starting to resurface. Is my dialogue too clunky? Are my characters believable? I'm not sure I want anyone to read it. I'm still enjoying writing though, it's a great feeling when you work out a solution to a plot problem and the words flow. 8 days left, I can do this!

4 days left and I've got less than 4,000 words to write. I've still been struggling with what to write but I'm confident I'll do it. JD suggested going through and reducing everything that happens to 1 sentence so I can see the story laid out clearly. I spent an hour doing this yesterday and it really helps. I spotted a couple of places an extra connecting scene is needed. Just one last push and I'll be there!

I'm not the most consistent of writers but I'm getting it done. My average daily word count is 1,730 :)

So, it's the 28th of November and I just finished my book! It's currently 48,000 words but without adding words just for the sake of the word count, I'm finished. I've decided to stop writing and use the last couple of days left to read through and make any alterations but for the purposes of my Year of Learning, I'm finished.

I feel like I've learned a lot about the mechanics of writing a book. in a lot of ways it's been much easier than I ever imagined and I feel like I should've done this years ago. In other ways it's been hellish with times where I've felt like I'd never get finished. Anyway, it's done now and hopefully after a period of reflection I'll be able to re-read and edit it ready for publication.

I wrote a book! :D

A Year of Learning:

Smartphone Photography

Breadmaking

Arduino Programming

Harmonica

Creative Writing

Meditation

Crochet

Graphic Design

Family Tree

British Sign Language

Oh Burger! 40: The New York Deli Burger

At last, the end of our burger journey. There's been a lot of burgers, some great some not so great. I'm finishing off with the New York Deli burger. As you'd expect it has pastrami and swiss cheese with a spicy sauce. Sounds delicious!

Ingredients:

Steak burgers

Pastrami

Emmental

Sauerkraut

Burger Buns

For the sauce:

4 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 1/2 tablespoons horseradish sauce

2 tablespoons tomato ketchup

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Cook the burgers to your preference. Make up the sauce. Split the burger buns and add a tablespoon of sauce to both sides. Add a tablespoon of sauerkraut to the bottom bun and then top with the burger, cheese and pastrami. Top with the second bun and consume!

We really enjoyed these burgers! Something about the horseradish sauce and the sauerkraut went really well together. The emmental covered burger was meaty and cheesy in perfect ratio. The pastrami added another flavour to each bite. It was really good. Nice and moist from the sauce but it all held together well. A fitting finish to the burger journey I think.

Ratings: JD - 4, Emma - 4

Book Review - Tin Can Cook

Tin Can Cook by Jack Monroe seems like a great idea for a recipe book to me. For those days when you don't have time to shop for a meal or someone calls in unexpectedly to eat. Having some cans in your cupboard that can be transformed into a meal would make you feel super organised.

But does it work? Can you make acceptable meals mostly made from canned goods? Let's find out!

First up: Warm potato salad with anchovy mayo

Ingredients

100g mayo

Tinned potatoes

Tin of anchovies

1 tablespoon lemon juice

I picked this recipe because we've had a tin of anchovies in the cupboard for ages and I feel guilty for not having tried them on pizza before now. We already had lemon juice and mayo so I just had to buy some tinned potatoes.

Warm up the potatoes in a pan and then blend the remaining ingredients to make the anchovy mayo. Drain the potatoes and stir the mayo though them. I finished ours off with some parsley and pepper.

Lunch for two!

The anchovy mayo was a really strong flavour on it's own (I tried a bit as I made it) but it was different on the potatoes. Potatoes are quite plain which made the anchovy taste more mild. We really enjoyed it! It was incredibly simple and quick to put together with only a few ingredients. It ticks all my boxes. ✔️

PBJ Crumble 

Ingredients:

100g butter

100g peanut butter

1 tin cherry pie filling

100g jam

200g flour

50g sugar

Pour the cherries into a dish and try not eat all of the cherry sauce with a spoon right then. I just managed this! Dot the jam all around in the cherries. Make up the crumble topping by creaming the butter, peanut butter and sugar together and then rubbing in the flour until the mixture resembles small pebbles. Spoon this all over the dish to cover the cherries/jam. Bake in an oven at 180 C for about 30 minutes or when the crumble is browned a bit.

I only just remembered to get a picture of it. Such was my eagerness to eat it, I forgot all about it being a food for this post. It was fantastic. The best crumble I've eaten. We had it with custard and it was so good. Using tinned fruit for a quick crumble dessert is a genius idea and much more convenient than preparing fruit first. Another thumbs up!

Creamy Tomato Soup

I often make tomato soup as we like having it with grilled cheese/cheese toasties for tea. This recipe is different from my usual recipe even though I do use tinned tomatoes in mine.

Ingredients:

1 can tinned tomatoes

1 can coconut milk

1 can tinned carrots

1 vegetable stock cube

Ground black pepper

The recipe is as easy as putting everything in a pan, heating it up and then blitzing it with either an immersion blender or putting it into a blender to puree. Heat through again and serve.

It was certainly creamy from the addition of coconut milk but it also gave it an unusual smell that me and Val weren't keen on. It was a nice thick soup thanks to the addition of carrots. Overall I enjoyed it, it was warming, creamy and thick as you'd expect but it didn't have quite the same taste of tomato soup I usually have. Still, it was so quick and simple to make it'd be ideal for a quick lunch on a cold day

Conclusion

I found Tin Can Cook to be a recipe book full of ingenious and unpretentious recipes that are cheap and quick to prepare. There are lots more recipes in there that I want to try. I feel like this is the first true cheap meals cookbook I've ever read. Some of the recipes suggest rinsing baked beans because it's cheaper than buying beans such as pinto or cannellini beans. These kind of tips are so helpful to anyone struggling to afford food at anytime. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to feed their family for less money and to increase convenience too. 

A to Z Blogging Challenge: K is for Kitchen

We enjoy making food so I've decided for K to make a list of 10 things we get a lot of use from in our kitchen. 10 appliances or utensils that make things easier for us.

1. Slow Cooker

We get so much use out of our slow cooker. Shown in the picture with a chicken, spring green and chickpea soup. We make soups, stews, meatloaf, lasagne, curry, desserts and much more. I always check when I'm making something if it has a slow cooker version because I just love making a meal when I'm full of energy in the morning and coming back to a ready-made tea at 5.30. Plus, the house smells lovely all day!

2. Crockery Stand

We've got quite a small kitchen in our house so creative storage ideas are always a hit with us. This crockery stand doesn't take up much space in the corner of the counter but holds all our dinner plates, side plates and dishes. I really like how it looks too. The crockery is easy to access and using this stand saves space in the kitchen cabinets.

3. Casserole Dish

For years I wanted one of the Le Creuset casserole dishes but they're so expensive. JD bought me a cheaper alternative and I love it. It adds a nice splash of colour to the kitchen and I've used it a lot. We have a 'date night' meal every Tuesday when JD and I get the dining room to ourselves for an hour or so. I usually make us something in the casserole dish and it's really handy how you can start on the hob then transfer it to the oven to finish off.

4. Cutlery Drainer

I can't remember where he came from but our elephant drainer is great. Throw wet cutlery in his back and the excess water drains out of his trunk. A well designed kitchen thing that works.

5. Bluetooth Speaker

Not technically a kitchen gadget but it gets used in the kitchen the most out of any room. We had to buy this one to replace the one stolen when we got burgled last year. I really like to listen to music or a podcast when washing up, baking or prepping the slow cooker ingredients. 

6. Toastie Maker

It's actually a combo toaster, waffle maker and panini press but it gets used most to make toasties. Erin uses it most to make cheese toasties for her and sometimes Val when she's feeling generous. She also discovered a way to make cheese quesadillas in it which works really well. It was a gift for the family from JD's Dad a few years ago and it's had lots of use since.

7. Sieve

JD bought this huge sieve recently to use as a splash guard for when we make marinara sauce (which we make a lot) and it works perfectly. We just sit it on top of the pot when the marinara sauce is cooking and it stops that fine film of red sauce splotches covering everything as it bubbles and reduces. 

8. Smoothie Maker

I've had this smoothie maker a few years now but I still get plenty of use out of it. Maybe 3-4 mornings a week I have a smoothie for breakfast. You can buy such a lot of frozen prepped fruit now that it's really easy to make a smoothie in a couple of minutes plus they're so delicious. I also use it occasionally for making a milkshake or to blitz a tin of tomatoes.

9. Tassimo Drinks Maker

My sister Sally was telling me once about her boss who had bought a specialised Hot Chocolate Maker and we both said how decadent that was as it only made 1 drink. After thinking about it more I realised that I'd really enjoy having a drinks machine even though the only hot drink I'd make was hot chocolate. So I browsed eBay and found this one for only £10. Now once a week I treat myself to a really nice hot chocolate made by the Tassimo machine. I've bought some nice syrups too so I can have caramel or praline flavoured hot chocolate. I love it! 

10. Plastic Scraper

This unassuming blue plastic scraper gets used a lot by JD for scraping out mixing bowls before he washes up. We use it to scrape out the bowl when baking and to scrape the counter after making bread too. It cost something like 70p and we've had it for years but it gets used often.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about our favourite kitchen items. What utensil or appliance gets used the most in your kitchen?