Since then, I’ve written five novels and three novellas.

By 30 November, I had a 65,000-word story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not being allowed to edit anything written on the previous day forced me to push through to the end of the story. NaNo got me into a daily writing routine.

I was the Queen of the First Three Chapters, forever revising and polishing pages, only to abandon them in a fit of frustration. One of my issues prior to taking part in NaNo was not finishing stories. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. For anyone not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s an online writing marathon held every November. I started writing seriously during NaNoWriMo 2009. I’ve been writing off and on for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, the economic and employment situation is still pretty grim, so I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon. While I adore Switzerland, I would love to move back to Ireland someday. Due to the tax situation in the respective countries, Switzerland made the most sense. The commute from Freiburg to Basel was quick enough for us to see each other regularly, but when we decided to get married, one or the other of us had to move. Long story short, my now husband is Swiss. I originally planned to live there for a year or two but it turned out to be six! By the end of the summer, I’d found a job and a boyfriend and decided to stay. I had a couple of friends from Freiburg who’d spent a student exchange year at my university, so I had people to meet up with. When I won a scholarship to do a summer course at the Goethe-Institut in Freiburg im Breisgau, I jumped at the opportunity. I’d spent a summer at Düsseldorf two years previously and had kept up my German with classes in Dublin. Norway was at the top of my list but the living costs were insane. How did that happen?Īfter finishing university, I wanted to spend a year or two in a foreign country and learn a new-to-me language. Each summer, I was shipped off to spend the holidays with relatives, and a couple of those towns influenced the geography of Ballybeg, the fictional town where my Irish contemporary romances are set. Irish school summer holidays are long-two months for primary schools and three months for secondary schools. My grandparents lived in Kerry and I also have family in Cork.

Love and shenanigans by zara keane