On Marathons and Literary Genius....

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Ooooo… it’s almost time to begin my first novel. I’ve never attempted to write one; primarily because I’ve never been able to commit to a plot, characters or even a genre long enough to make a novel out of my scattered fragments of imagination. If I couldn’t come up with the perfect novel, why bother?

Then I heard about National Novel Writing Month… and I read the website. The philosophy seems to be the writing equivalent of running a marathon…one you don’t expect to win but hope to finish…just to say you ran a marathon. It doesn’t matter if your writing is crap, if you ever publish the damn thing, or if it’s literary genius…The goal is writing 50,000 words in a month that—hopefully—resemble a short novel by the end.

Why do it? Here are my reasons. 1) I’d never do it otherwise due to my own fears, picky nature, and procrastination. 2) Freedom to write whatever I want…w/o worrying about perfection. 3) It’ll be good for me…character building and will prove to myself that I can write a novel.

So, my plan is to publish my writing on this blog as I go. I make no guarantees about quality or entertainment value and stress that it may just be total crap…but, hey, hand me a Dixie cup of water and clap as I run by…at least I'm doing it. Or, come along with me and write your own novel in a month. We can puke together at the end… or along the way…

Now, I’d better start thinking about the plot…characters…genre… Hmmm….