Category: Imagine a Novel Weblog

It begins! (Damn BART.) I got some good ideas at Happy Donut on Market Street, though, so I’m pretty psyched to start.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text.” I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog. Also, I assume I condemned BART to hell because I got home at 12:54 am rather than sometime around 12:00 am, and, half a decade pre-iPhone, I didn’t have a device with me on which I could write or post blog entries.]

Since I’ve all but finally decided on a title, I designed the book cover. I went through some of my photos and found a couple perfect candidates. After mocking up two covers, I settled on one. I’m amazed how quickly I designed it. (2021 addendum: In retrospect, maybe I enjoy designing book covers more than writing fiction.)

I’m starting to like the title more and more, by the way.

A quick inventory shows that, so far, I have one title, zero words written (as the rules dictate, of course), one vague outline, three ill-defined characters, and a slickly designed book cover. I’m ready to start writing in roughly 17 1/2 hours, sure.

The sun is up. D’oh! (I’ll make an effort to avoid the word “D’oh!” in my novel.)

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog, “Notes on the Text.” I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

I spent a lot of time tonight working on possible chapter headings and a plot outline. Both are very, very vague, and I’m probably taking too serious a tack. Maybe it’ll turn out amusing, but I’m heading for Somberland at this rate.

I had tentatively decided to call my main character David. I wanted a fairly common name for men of my generation that implies strength when faced with adversity. Tonight, I came up with what I thought was a great title: A Question of David—meaning both “The subject under consideration is David” and “A question asked of David.” Fine, right?

Unbelievably, a quick Google search revealed that there was already a book called The Question of David, a true account of a disabled woman’s effort to adopt. My immediate solution was to change his name to Aaron, but I still like “David” better.

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

This morning—early this morning; yesterday, for me, really—I added my site to the NaNoWriMo webring (see bottom…). I’ve never had the desire to be part of a webring before. However, I think in the attempt to do something difficult and new, it will help me to be able to easily find others who are doing the same thing. As an added bonus, it serves as evidence to you that there are others—many others.

With barely 33 hours before I can begin writing, the anticipation is killing me.

Wow, this still appears to work: < ? nanowrimo # >

[Note: a form of this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

[Note: this blog entry originally appeared in my November 2002 NaNoWriMo blog. I’ve now moved all of those entries into the “Imagine a Novel Weblog” category of this blog.]

I guess I’ll use this space to document minutiae that I anticipate “normal readers” of my anti-blog won’t care to read every time I post. However, I reserve the right to scrap this page and just write about writing (sigh…) in the anti-blog.

See, I’m not entirely certain whether the process of writing an average of 1700 or so words a day will increase my anti-blog output (since I’ll be so used to writing) or whether it will decrease it (since I’ll be so tired of writing). This will be an interesting experiment for me.

In the meantime, I’m a bit worried about what I’ll actually write about. In the past couple years, I’ve occasionally thought about writing fiction… someday. I’ve also casually considered writing a fictionalized account of some things that have happened to me (i.e. the Dave Eggers approach, which might be cheap, since I’m not Dave Eggers). However, I don’t have any idea what I’ll start writing about in three days. I have a few themes and concepts in mind. I’ll probably write in first-person. Still, I don’t have any clear ideas about characters, plot, setting, genre, or anything else. You know, all those other things that go into writing a good novel.

Of course, there’s the proverbial rub. The “contest” isn’t really designed to elicit good novels, just 50,000-word novels. I, however, am used to holding myself up to a high (and often unrealistic) standard, which often results in my not trying new things (since I obviously can’t start with a high level of skill). Though I’m convinced that what I write will not be total crap, I just have to accept that it won’t be great. I also have to tell myself that this is an exercise to help me learn to write. Throughout my life, the more pressure I’ve been under, the better work I’ve created, and, I think, the more I’ve learned.

I also need to make time to do the freelance work I’m getting paid to do, but that should be no problem. I work 20 hours a week at CLCV, and have scheduled in 20 hours a week to do NARRP until I’m done. The rest of the time I’ll spend writing. [Sleeping and eating will come naturally.] This is not self-deception, I swear.