Last November a co-worker and I were flipping through a book written by a local dame.
I’m not going to say what the book is called, or even discuss the content, because that is irrelevant.
And it would also be mean. Between the two of us we only had unkind things to say about it. It was so poorly written that we couldn’t even think of ways to veil our words, even thinly, as constructive criticism.
Why it warranted such harsh criticism is also irrelevant.
What is relevant is that after looking through this book and being thoroughly disheartened that it had ever managed to get published; we were both ashamed that we had not managed to write something of our own. Not as a collaboration. Individually. Neither of us had ever written a book — despite it having been long term goals for each of us.
We challenged each other to have a completed manuscript a year to that day. I don’t remember the exact day, it’s sometime in November. I have it written down on the calendar at work. The subject matter is not an issue. It need not be fiction, as long as it is a complete entity.
We shook on it.
It’s mere days away from April.
I haven’t so much as put pen to paper only to eventually doodle some squiggles and dots in the hopes that something manuscript related might come of it.
But today there was Inspiration. Today, there was hope. I may have something worthy of calling a complete [first] draft by November after all.
Of course, I’ll be writing fiction. I don’t know enough about any given subject [excepting myself] to delve into non-fiction. Along with the several flashes of Inspiration that came today, there were also inklings of Plot. Plot has frequently eluded me, and been a large part of why my stories always got abandoned. Hopefully Plot develops, and I keep enough steam for this project to get to the point where I have to be concerned with Climax and Denouement. I’ve so rarely reached that part of a story that I don’t even really know how to do it.
I’m really excited.
I really hope I stay that way.
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4 comments:
Share date please. The Gentleman Thief and Alien Adventuress need a first draft deadline, too.
I've been informed by Gayle that the date is 2 days shy of the Nanowrimo end date. So November 28th.
The Gentleman Thief and Alien Adventuress? Curiousity = piqued.
November28. I make a note of this.
You know what I am going to lend you when I return? My signed copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I feel the sheer awesome of its concept will protect it from puppy power.
I agree! Also, she has mostly taken to chewing empty beer cans now.
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