And So, It Begins...

I'm trying NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again this year. Basically, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Rough draft, of course; nobody (other than maybe Joyce Carol Oates) could write a finished novel in a month, or at least not one that anybody would ever want to read. The point of NaNoWriMo is to unlock the creative process, and get as much written down as possible without regard to any editorial concerns; it instills the routine of writing every day, workmanlike, rather than sitting around, procrastinating and waiting for inspiration to hit. My first two NaNoWriMo's were spent writing my novel-in-hiatus, Eden, and last year I attempted (and failed) to write 20 2,500-word short stories to get to my 50,000-word total; it did, however, produce two finished stores, "Ectoplasm" and "Immortality", which are currently out on submission to various literary journals.

This year I'm writing The Wheatyard Chronicles, about an eccentric writer named Elmer Glaciers Wheatyard (possibly his real name, more than likely not) who lives in a farm town in Central Illinois, not far from Champaign, where I went to college. Yes, I'm a character, too, narrating my interactions with Wheatyard and trying to figure who the hell he really is. Interestingly, the name "Elmer Glaciers Wheatyard" was coined by my five-year-old daughter, Maddie, during one of her imaginative flights of fancy. And I, pretentious artist wannabe that I am, have inflated that single name into what I hope turns out to be a compelling character. I'm attempting to write this on a laptop on my train to and from work, forsaking the longhand-in-notebook method of prior years which has obvious limitations. Unfortunately, the laptop has its own limitations as well, as it's an outdated Sony which doesn't hold its battery charge very well. But I'll try to make it work, somehow.

I wrote 1,130 words on the train this morning, on top of about 1,400 words that I had already written in October that don't count toward my total. You can monitor my progress, and read occasional excerpts, here.