I'm writing a book -- what are you doing for the next month?

It's semi-official. I've decided to finally write my "great American novel", and I'm going to do it in that typical American fashion: quickly.

I was in the bookstore about a week ago, and there was a table of books for sale that were about writing novels and books in a short time (usually about a month). It was in recognition of the National Novel Writing Month, which is in November each year.

Of course, I picked up one of the how-to books and skimmed through the first few chapters while standing there in the store. I was hooked -- I know I can do this, and I've got just the story to write. I bought the guide and was on my way.

Of course, I didn't start in November -- I'm too eager to get moving. I started on Wednesday, Oct 22d, so I should have the rough draft finished (about 50,000-75,000 words) by Thanksgiving (assuming I stick to the schedule). It's been five days, and I've got well over 6,000 words on paper (electrons?) now. It's amazing how liberating it is to just write -- not worry about grammar, overall cohesiveness, editing, or anything else. Just writing, pure and simple, as fast and as prolific as possible. Now that the story is starting to move, it's getting easier. I've got about half the backstory fleshed out, and now comes the fun part -- the action and adventure!

I'll keep this blog updated periodically to let everyone (ok, both of you) know how I'm doing. Even if I get the first draft done by the end of Nov, it still won't be ready for publication. Lots of edits, rewrites, adaptation, changes, etc have to go into a novel. But if the story comes out half as good as I am imagining it will, I think this will be a fantastic read. At the very least, I can get an official rejection letter from a publisher!