NaNoWriMo

In case you haven't heard, November is National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo).  The idea is to try to write a draft of a 50,000 word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30.  50,000 words is pretty short for a novel, equivalent to 175 pages or so, but there have been novels of that length: Brave New World, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and The Great Gatsby are all in that range, according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanowrimo#Rules



So, in the spirit of this, I've been working on the draft of a novel.  I must go ahead and confess right now, there's no way I'm going to hit 50,000 words by Nov. 30...not even close.  However, I figured it would be a good time to launch a new novel project (I have finished one, tentatively entitled Dead Man Running, which is currently submitted to an indepedent publisher).  This newly-launched project is currently entitled Dead of Winter and will deal with a much more spec-fic storyline than the previous novel, which is more of a mainsteam mystery/thriller type story.  And please don't be too put off by the titles...as with everything else I write, they come from a Christian worldview.  In fact, my current plan is for that worldview to be even more explicit in the current novel.

So why am I so sure I won't hit 50,000 words?  The writing process certainly isn't easy.  Sometimes the ideas come in a flood, sometimes they're more like a drip or a trickle.  Sometimes the hardest part (especially when you have a "real" job to contend with) is finding the time to write.  Still, I love it, and I honestly don't think I could imagine not doing this.  That, I suppose, is the definition of passion.  I'm thankful that God has given me something that does that for me, and I hope everyone reading this has something similar in their own lives.  Philippians 4:13.--SMS