In Which I Become A Famed Novel Writer

So I've had the same problem with all the epic novels I've ever written: I haven't written them. I get really excited about writing them, and sometimes I'll write the first five chapters, or that scene where the captain of the guard finally hooks up with the queen, but I've never actually finished a novel.

So this month I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time.

By the way, my Halloween party was epic. At one point I peered through the weed smoke at all the drinking and dancing and making out, and I was like, I can’t believe I’m at a party this awesome. Then I was like, I can’t believe I THREW a party this awesome. Nobody threw up, but one dude fell down the stairs. My personal party philosophy is that the more injuries people sustain, the awesomer the party was.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It's an informal challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It's always in November, which is a great month to just sit under blankets in your pajamas and fool around with your laptop. NaNoWriMo has grown hugely in the ten or so years since it started -- last year more than 160,000 people did it.

The problem for me is that I'm one of those people who likes to spend a week on 500 words. So I'm going to have to get over it and write my novel. I'm counting on my competitive spirit to help me beat other writers. See, you sign up on the NaNoWriMo site, and then you can friend other people who are doing it and see their word count. I populated my writing buddies page with people I know from a fantasy writers' website I've been a member of for four or five years. I know some of them pretty well. At the end of the first day yesterday, I was vastly pleased to see that my word count exceeded theirs.

We'll see what it looks like next week.

And to answer the question everybody's asking, my novel is gonna be about this really cool boi princess who's kind of a fuck-up but very likeable, and she lives on an island where they have these really cool flying machines that operate with pedals, and then her father's evil twin murders both her parents and exiles the princess. But the princess' best friend grows up seeking revenge, and when she's old enough she goes on a quest to find the princess. She finds her and they have sex and then they come back and overthrow the evil aunt and live happily ever after.

The end. Except it has to be 50,000 words.

My current word count is 4,055. Not bad for two days. Apparently you're supposed to write 5,000 words every three days, or 1,667 words a day. And you can't write at work. (I made that rule up.)