My goal for the month of October was to prepare myself for National Novel Writing Month 2013, which begins in just a couple of days. This will be my.... let me count here.... SIXTH experience with this self-destructive marathon of insanity. Early mornings, late nights, time micro-management, sore shoulders, bleary eyes, living through a constant state of distraction. Is it any wonder why I keep coming back?
To recap, the point of NaNoWriMo -- as it is so unnecessarily and awkwardly abbreviated -- is to challenge people to try and write the first draft of a complete novel within the confines of a calendar month. November to be specific, and yeah, they went and picked one of the shorter months, which makes perfect sense when you’re trying to do something that takes a long time. The benchmark used here to define a novel is writing 50,000 words, which winds up averaging out to 1,667 words daily. The word count is not impossible, but trying to string those 50,000 words together into a coherent and interesting story within 30 days is what makes it interesting.
My track record so far isn’t bad at all, since I’ve “won” or reached the 50,000 mark during each of the five years I’ve participated. Granted, one of those years -- last year, in fact -- didn’t result in a finished novel, but it doesn’t need to be finished to win. What I have done so far on that one is well over 50,000 words, which gives me a nice head start for when I go back to finish it someday. But this year I’m starting with a completely fresh idea... so fresh, in fact, that the idea didn’t even exist until seventeen days ago.
This year, for literally the first time I can ever remember, I’m going to try writing a comedy. I’ve written a lot of scary and atmospherically creepy stuff in my day, and I think it’s safe to say I’ve got the tearjerker down, but I’ve never tried to write a funny story. I’m curious and more than a little anxious to see if I’ll even be able to pull it off. I don’t want to give everything away about it, but I’ll offer a teaser: If you follow my posts on Facebook, you’ve likely come across some Moments of 5th Grade Zen, describing some of the goofy things that happen on a typical day in elementary school. My story this year will explore the idea that several of these silly and ridiculous things might not be accidental, and could actually be carefully planned and coordinated by a group of highly self-aware students with reasons to distract the staff at their school. At least until someone with unexpected ties to the history of their school catches on to the plan....
It should be obvious that my November goal will be to finish the first draft of this manuscript, which is titled (at least for the time being) “5th Grade Zen.” November 1st is coming soon, which means the word count begins building Friday at midnight.
Wish me luck, and stay tuned....
