Okay, I am really doing it. Next month I am tackling a whole novel. 50,000 words, 30 days. It doesn't really have a plot yet, just characters and a setting. I am being constantly assured that the plot will come. I just have to make these people in my head real and they will live out their stories, miraculously, on the page in front of me. Participant after participant in National Novel Writing Month, November, swears this to be true. So I'm trusting these complete strangers and I'm making myself do it. I have a lot to say and I'm tired of being afraid to say it, so here is my chance. Only six days left to takeoff!
So, what is the novel about? Well, it's about life, of course, and it's pretentious and high handed right out of the gate, because hello! It is me writing it. It's about Emmeline Superior, the niece of my character Bauxie Superior from previous works. She lives in a fictional Britain and then a fictional-but-based-on-real Seattle at the time of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exhibition in 1909. It has some horror, some supernatural, some time travel, some murder and mayhem, but mostly its psychological, about the struggle between free will and fate and our acceptance of each. Kind of.
Intriguing? I hope so. But really the writing is about overcoming my doubts and self criticism and being disciplined enough to just keep writing. A lot. For days on end.
Stay tuned!
