SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31st 2009

"IT BEGINS"


Tomorrow I am going to start writing a novel. It's part of national novel writing month - which I only looked into a couple days ago: beginning this novel tomorrow is a pretty recent development. I have no idea yet what it is going to be about. I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning. I'm thinking a science fiction fantasy epic, but feel it would be somehow premature to guess.

I have 30 days to finish - participants in NaNoWriMo start writing their novels on November 1st, and have to complete and upload a 50,000 word manuscript by midnight, November 30th. This to me sounds like great fun.

During most of my writing process, I'll be traveling. I embark from Los Angeles Tuesday for a writing retreat in a beach house on the Oregon coast, part of a road trip through Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. I'll be joining novelist "write-ins" in Monterey, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Newport, Portland, and Seattle - creative hotbeds of furious writing to meet the November Deadline.

I've also registered with a NaNo group in Melbourne Australia, where I'll be attending the Parliament of World Religions in December - I assume those who cross the finish line will gather in December for editing sessions, and I plan to be among them with my science fiction fantasy epic - or whatever other earth shaking piece of writing hath graced my pen.

It all feels sort of unreal to me at the moment. But exciting, like a leap into the unknown...