Yesterday, I joined something. I'm not much of a joiner, but this particular thing to join has to do with novel writing, so I thought, why the heck not? I like to write novels. . . .
November is National Novel Writing Month. A writer named Chris Baty started a novel writing challenge, which you can read about and/or join by following this link:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
The whole point of the challenge, as you might have guessed, is to get you to write a novel in a month. I mean, some people take 10 years to complete a novel. I don't know about you, but I just don't have that kind of time on my hands. This way, you just power-write and finish in 31 days, which is three whole days longer than rehab. The best part is that you don't have time to go back over your writing and edit anything. You just write like the wind, which is a really good exercise, like sprinting. I might have a heart attack when it's over, but I will have completed the race.
So, I've been practicing for the 31 day novel writing challenge by working on an untitled dark comedy about a nice guy who happens to be married to a controlling bitch who wears nothing but yoga clothes, has a little OCD problem, takes a few too many prescription drugs, and talks only in exclamations. He would like to kill her.
This current "1 month" project will be more like a 2 month deal, but we need to walk before we run. We being me. I like this story. It's easy to write because the female character is an amalgam of a lot of women I know and a lot of women who shop at the Whole Foods in Mill Valley. My main character, Andy, is this really nice person; you will like him. His wife, on the other hand, is a truly horrible and embarrassing person. She's pretty bad. You might hate her, but she is probably a bit like you, if you happen to be a woman. We're all different degrees of crazy, we women. I don't care who you are; don't try to pretend you're not mental. So, Andy wants to kill his wife, even though he's not exactly the murderous type, and that's what makes the story funny, in my opinion, but you can read it for yourself sometime soon.
I'm having a good time writing this story, and my goal is to be done by the end of August. I rush home every night after work, take my medium sized brown dog for a quick run, then pour myself a cocktail and sit out on the porch and write and write and write. After almost two weeks of writing, I'm up to over 10,000 words, and my goal is 50,000 (same as the November thing), which is not so much a novel, in my opinion, as much as it is the bones of a novel. I'm going to have to write a lot faster if I want to do the November thing. Stop over-thinking everything. . . . .
I will post an excerpt, or perhaps the whole damn thing here when I have a free minute, which may be tonight, or may be never. . . . I can't do everything. Until then, keep your pencils sharp and your wine close. -fk
