Tuesday, October 26, 2010

6 Days Til National Novel Writing Month

I've made mention of this before, but as of yesterday I'm officially signed up for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November. The goal is to write a single work of fiction running AT LEAST 50,000 words, and work cannot begin before November 1st.

Why am I doing this? It's one of my life's dreams to be a published novelist, but I've done a poor job over the last year of actually writing anything. Can't really achieve that dream if I don't have a finished project to try to get published, can I? So, by participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I'm forcing myself to crank out some words, and have a legitimate core for what I will later expand to a full novel (50,000 words in honestly only half the length of your average novel, but still a lot to write in 30 days).

Writing during NaNoWriMo is all about Quantity over Quality. Write, write, write, even if what you're writing is crap, keep going! It's about going with the flow and creating without letting your internal editor bog you down about making everything perfect. Once November is done, THEN I will go back and see how much of what I wrote can still be used in the real, full-length novel, and what will have to be cut.

For anyone interested in following my progress, I will have a word counter widget installed to this blog as soon as the event starts. Also, once it's all over, I'll be happy to email out the unedited original draft to anyone who provides me an email, so you can read what I worked so hard to create.

Here is me "official" short preview of what the story is about:

Nate Gillick's 2010 novel stars Calvin Johnson, a freelance writer who reluctantly picks up an iAssistant, the new wonder-gadget that has billions of potential uses, from phone to portable TV to translator to heart monitor. Surgically attached at the wrist to help monitor vital signs, the iAssistant even comes with adaptive AI, that learns from how it's used, to be the best possible servant and companion. But what happens when a modern marvel of all-in-one technology grows a mind of its own, and disagrees with its owner on how it should be used?

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