Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo). I’ve always wanted to do Nano–where you aim for a novel-length manuscript in one month–but the past two years I have been knee-deep in already started projects. This year, I’m set. The new book is ready to go and, in about five minutes, I am going to open a blank Word document and set down words.
And that’s scary.
Books are written one word at a time. One sentence. One page. One chapter. It is very, very weird to sit down and look at a blank screen and know that it will one day be as long as a book. There will be words there. There will be a whole world populated with people there. But they will only exist if I get my rear end into a chair, my hands onto a keyboard, and I type. It’s a minor life and death, writing a novel. A writer can succeed and make a character live, or they can create a character and lose the flow somewhere in the middle, and the character “dies.” Oh, I never want to fail a character that way. I never want to kill off a character without giving them a chance. I tend to like my characters. I want them to breathe. To fail them is unthinkable.
Only other writers understand that. The rest of you “normal” people out there would say that means I need psychiatric meds. 🙂
So, if you are so inclined, say a little prayer for me (and for so many other writers who are typing away madly) as I start Taryn McKenna’s story. She’s a pretty cool chick, even though she has one Very Big Fear. So off I go… Here’s hoping Taryn lives!
-JB
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