While I'm waiting for videos to upload from my phone, it's time to start thinking about this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, I think). Scratch that! It's time to start doing something about it, not just thinking about it.
Ever since I first found out about this annual goal for aspiring writers to write at least 50,000 words within the month of November last year, I've aspired to do something about it this year. In typical fashion, it feels like every other month would have allowed time and investment in such a project and November 2012 seems overburdened already, but such as it is. Despite my workload, I'm going to try and find a way to make it happen.
So what am I planning to write about? That's a good question.
There are two projects in mind. The first is a Killshot short story involving a detailed analysis of how a young fellow becomes a professional assassin. The second is a fantasy novel. That's about as far as I've gone with either idea. Every day for the past week, I've darted back and forth between which project should take priority and neither one seems to secure the lead in this race. With the starting pistol hours away from going off, it's time for me to make a decision.
As much as I could make use of a Killshot novel, there's a big part of me craving something different. Step away from the same type of work I've been doing these past couple of years and write something for myself. In other words, it feels as if I want to write a Killshot novel so that I'll have a Killshot novel to sell. With the fantasy novel, I have no aspiring plans other than the standard idea to sell it as a self-published ebook if I like the final result, but that's not the priority.
Then again, I have no idea what this fantasy novel will be about, let alone details of the world. Any ideas bouncing around are not concrete enough to announce here, so it would literally involve a more complicated endeavour than the Killshot novel, where at least I know the plot. And it would involve the real world, something that's already created with millions of supplements available on a daily basis. It would be harder to write a fantasy novel at this point with the workload already on my plate and numerous appointments on tap for the month. (I'm already losing out on the first day when I go in for the first cortisone injection tomorrow morning.)
The thing about harder projects is that they're very attractive options for me. A challenge mocking me in the background and I'm always up for showing a challenge who's boss. It may not be the best idea - how can it be any worse if I don't even have an idea? - but it looks like I need to piece together 50,000 words of fantasy.
Maybe I could just write some S&M fanfare using alternate names for Middle Earth characters as a backup plan.
I wrote a big long post and then when I hit preview, Firefox returned with absolutely nothing. Oh Firefox, why can't you just work with all pages? Oh pages, why must you force me to use IE?
ReplyDeleteBottom line: do it. Write 50K words. Do not expect them to be good. Do not plan to use them for any purpose or get them published. Just write 50K words. Worry about writing the good stuff later.
"Just write 50,000 words. Worry about writing the good stuff later."
ReplyDeleteThat should be on a t-shirt.