In late October I started a two-part blog series, Wandering Brain. Then I stopped to engage in a month-long writing program/contest. National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) was a challenge to writers to create a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I accepted the call on November 4th and began writing a sequel to Far from Newark, titled Return to Newark, and I am pleased to announce that I completed the novel on November 25th. I received a certificate of achievement, which I had to print myself. And if I want I could purchase a T-shirt stating my accomplishment.
Of course participating in this program required that all other writing, reading and most other leisure pursuits be kept at a minimum. It required that 65 and Alive Blog cease for the month, it also required discipline of a structured plan and sticking to a schedule which I sometimes lack. I wrote every morning and reviewed my work in the evenings with minor revisions and corrections of completely incomprehensible sentences or thoughts. Then start again the next day.
Writing a novel is full-time work and not suited for a family life, children, honey-do lists or anything close to a normal life. Not recommended for most people. I am now, at a much slower pace, reviewing and editing my novel. At some point I will print a copy and rewrite again. Then edit and edit some more. Return to Newark may see the light of day (in digital edition) by the end of 2014.
My Wandering Brain took me on a completely unexpected path. Perhaps knowing that it would only last one month allowed me to complete it. My plan was to just plow right into the work and write each day knowing that I was 2500 words closer to completion. It did feel rather good when I submitted my rough draft for final word count validation. I got almost as good a feeling as I did when Far from Newark was submitted to Smashwords.com and then received confirmation of its conversion to digital format.
I hope that upon my return to more regular blogging that I didn’t lose too many of my readers. With that in mind I would appreciate a comment just to tell me someone read this blog.
Far from Newark Update
McDonald’s posts “Billions sold” on its signboard to announce how they are doing. I am pleased to state my motto for now is: Dozens sold. Email me and I will be glad to send my followers a free copy of Far from Newark, just tell me what digital format you would like.
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I read your BLOG.
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