Taking The Plunge

If you’ve been paying attention while milling about aimlessly within the ranks of the Rants Army® out there, you know by now I’ve been doing some writing.  To you all here in blogland, this has manifested itself primarily in my occasional Flash Fiction attempts (check them out).  The feedback has been positive and steady, and I truly appreciate it.

What you might not know is that over here behind this curtain… no, wait.  NO! DON’T LOOK THERE… here, this one… I’ve been pecking away at one of several keyboards in an honest attempt at writing.  While I consider much of my effort to be the equivalent of an epileptic, blind baby doing finger painting, some good and trusted friends and family have told me that with more work and bribes, I have some hope of publication someday.

Given all that, I decided to try something bold.  If you bother to look at my homepage here (lazy folk: link here), you’ll notice a new sidebar widget – the National Novel Writing Month tracker graphic.  Yes, Rants Army®, I’m taking the plunge and going for it.  If you’re curious, here’s the link to NaNoWriMo.  Said tracker will chart my progress.

Like the flash fiction, there are rules.  The first rule is that you register for free.  I’m all about free shit.  Second, you put a digital stake in the ground and say, “I’m writing a book and shit.”  From there, the month of November is dedicated to producing a novel-length work.  Participants have thirty days to generate 50,000 words of draft copy.  In my case, a rough draft.  Very, very rough.  For those of you who are math challenged, that comes to 1667 words each day for thirty consecutive days.  If you’ve really, really tried writing, you know this isn’t always a cake walk.

I’m confident I’ll reach the 50k mark.  On good days, I can crank out 2000 words.  My personal best to date is 5800, stymied only by this pesky Army that expects me to show up every day and actually do something productive.

Tune in regularly and see how I’m doing.