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| National Novel Writing Month |
Would that I could begin this post with the words, "It was a dark and stormy night the day that NaNoWriMo began!" Sadly, it's a bright, crisp fall evening of no particular merit or demerit. But it's still the first day of National Novel Writing Month.
What, you've never heard of NaNoWriMo? Then you're obviously not one of the 242,373 people who have signed up this year on the NaNoWriMo website.
I've started twice. I have the t-shirts to prove it! But, slacker that I am, I haven't completed even once. Last year, however, I did hit 50 out of the required 80 thousand words, all without an outline. I began with a single image. That image led to characters who started interacting with each other in ways unplanned by their "creator." Those interactions led to situations and plot twists. Sadly, however, life kept making it's demands, forcing me out of the world of the story. It's challenging to be in a world where characters are behaving badly and acting out emotionally and then having to get back to the calm and courteous practice of assessing student outcomes.
Next year, however, I'll be able to plant my butt in a chair and pound away at these non-clacking keys until I crank out a the complete book.
In the meantime, I want to get a draft of last year's book completed by the time winter quarter starts so that I can share it with some perspicacious readers while it still has some saliency. It's a bit time-bound because it has references to some very local ongoing events. This is not to say that it couldn't be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in academic politics and flesh-eating demons. It's an academic satire + horror + fantasy + super-hero novella with an ending that cries out for serious CGI. (It would even make a groovy graphic novel but I am not an artist of that sort.) It's probably unsalable trash but, as Touchstone says in As You Like It, "It's an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own"
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