the-inbetween.com

A Novel Weblog

Well, that whole "write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November" thing is starting again, and I shall not partake. I attempted to try last year, only to fall short by 99.5%. Basically, my story was "A guy walks into town."

What happened next was left as an exercise to the reader.

The thought of trying again in 2004 crossed my mind. The rational thing would be to set my goals low, like beating last year's output rather than the lofty 50,000 word limit. This way, if I keep it up, I should be able to get to 50k by 2050. Unfortunately, no matter how reasonable the goal might seem, writing any form of fiction remains an alien concept to me.

I can visualize worlds and systems and social structures and schemes and plots and intrigues and characters, but I can't piece them together into something interesting. Yet, in four+ years, I've managed to write thousands of words about absolutely nothing.

The final count for words written here in the month of October is around 2,500. Not bad, considering my low posting frequency. If I can quadruple my posting frequency, I should be able to reach 10,000 easy. Get it done quick enough, and that 50,000 *might* start feeling mighty close.

No one can be seriously expected to write a "good" novel in a month, and if that's the case then the main -- simple -- purpose of NaNoWriMo is to get yourself to write more. To that end, there's no difference whether the output is a historical epic or a modern tale of alienation or a discussion about what beers you bought the other day (Okocim!)

So, uh, here's the start of my attempt.