So, I’ve decided to take a number of ideas swirling around in my tiny little brain and use them to write something new to me (relatively). I’ve a writer, yes, but I’ve never really embraced fiction fully. I never could set up place and time in a way I found to be authentic or original. Lately, though, I’ve finally admitted what others probably realized long ago: nothing is original, everything is derivative, and why not just have fun incorporating all the disparate elements that make you you into a story? So, against what may in fact be my better judgment, I’m working on a novel.
But, to do so, I’m going to have to get past the phrase working on a novel. It reads as so cloying. So pretentious. So willfully unemployed. I don’t want to turn into one of THOSE PEOPLE. I won’t let it become the lone topic at parties, or the thing people always ask me about because it seems to be never finished (a la Paul Giamatti’s Miles Raymond in Sideways). It just is an undiscovered country to me; I’ve only written short stories closely based on circumstances I’ve lived. Humorous (or -less) character studies about people I grew up around. I tell self-deprecating stories about my own mistakes, not those of invented characters.
So, we’ll see how this goes. My goal is to write 300 words every day specifically on this project. I write 300 words everyday anyway; might as well make them part of a greater whole. This would mean I’d finish in a bit less than a year. If I’m happy with it, I’ll send it around. If not, hey, at least I tried. I guess I just need to check this one off my list of things to do before I die.
