Gibberish is My Native Language

I took a (somewhat) later flight out to California this trip, which allowed me to leave the house two hours later than usual. Instead of sleeping all the way here like I normally do, I planned on writing my entry for the National Novel Writer's Month. I picked up my nice pen that Lady Jaye gave me, flipped open my notebook, and wrote all of two dozen words before I was completely uninterested in continuing.

I feel that my story idea is feeble. While I could probably grunt out 40,000 words or whatever, it wouldn't be anything worth sharing. And in the end, I'd rather spend my time doing other things instead of writing something I don't think will be any good.

a_sleepy_panda made a good comment to me over IM yesterday about how some authors felt more comfortable writing short stories and some felt better writing novels. I guess if I were to do Nano next year, maybe I'd aim for a Sin City-like collection of short stories centered around a defined group of characters. As it stands now, all I have are character sketches, and they aren't even great ones at that.

Better luck next year!

I may not be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. The problem? Same as my previous attempts, I lack a storyline. I have some decent ideas for characters and their backgrounds, but nothing that really ties them together, and certainly nothing that would result in anything reminicient of an epic conclusion. I could easily crank out some character sketches, but that's as far as my ideas take me.

I'm going to put it up here as a poll, so you can give me the thumbs up or thumbs down before I begin my 50,000 word oddessey. For some reason I'm more nervous about putting my idea up than talking about nearly failing my motorcycle safety course or the dorkiness associated with running a roleplaying game about zombies.

OK, here goes:
( Yarr, here be spoilers )

The National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo, starts in November. For those of you unfamiliar with Nanowrimo, it's an event that attempts to get writers to crank out a novel. It doesn't have to be good, it doesn't even have to be edited, it just has to have enough words to be counted as a novel. Sure, you could just type "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over again, but that makes you a psycho and not a novelist.

I've entered Nanowrimo twice. My first attempt was the closest. I had been laid off from my job in Oregon earlier that year, and by the fall I realized that I wasn't going to find any legit employment in the mountain town that I had grown to love. I spent my mornings telecommuting for an old client in Seattle, and my afternoons scribbling out my Nanowrimo entry. I filled two notebooks with material. Unfortunately, my idea for a story was lame, even by my standards. I was about to start notebook three and knew that I had already jumped the shark within my own story, within the first novel. I caved in and did not finish. I didn't even make it past character sketches and outlines the next year.

I took last year off, and I guess that brings us to this year, right? I may have left a year out there somewhere. I've had a horrible sense of my own personal timeline lately and should probably chart it out. It'd make an interesting post, that's for sure.

In honor of failing twice before, I'm going to enter Nanowrimo again this year. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about ... zombies have been playing heavily on my mind, especially due to the Year of the Zombie campaign I'm running, but perhaps that wouldn't make the best novel. Oh well, I have about a month to decide!

So, I challenge the six or so of you that read this journal -- are you up for writing a novel this year?