And why do it publicly?
On July 3rd I watched this:
In it Matt Cutts talks about trying something new for 30 days. Doing things you've always wanted to do. Now I, like many, have always wanted to write a novel but lacked the commitment, the courage, and the faith in myself to actually sit down and do it. And, to be fair, the time.
I considered a number of things to do in 30 days - take a photo every day, give up twitter, booze, swearing. But it seemed wrong to give up something, it needed to be positive. Thanks to the smartphone taking a photo every day is an addiction, not a commitment. And there's not fucking way I'm giving up booze or swearing.
Matt said he set about writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, and I'm willing to give that a go. After watching that video I couldn't sleep just thinking about doing this. As he says, it only requires 1,666 words a day on average. But once you start, 1,666 a day is quite a lot. As it turns out most people do it in November (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) but if I didn't start straight away then I'd probably never start it.
This will not be a good novel. It will not be high literature, it will be full of plot holes and grammatical errors. I don't care. I just want to get of my arse and do this.
So why blog it?
Because I'm a terribly lazy person, and I need deadlines or some kind of commitment to actually see something to its conclusion. So I have the pressure of the daily blog. There will be posted here a new chapter every day, to a total of 30 chapters, hopefully somewhere between 1500 - 2000 words each. Depending on.. stuff. Plot. Structure. Sudden illness.
PLEASE NOTE: THESE CONDITIONS MAY BE SUBJECT TO SUDDEN CHANGE
The other reason I'm blogging this is because it's pointless to write without an audience, and as it will never be published I present it to the interwebs instead. Unless you are a publisher, and want to give me money, then I'm happy to be wrong. Given the medium, I'm interested to write it with the audience in mind. So let me know what you like, what you don't like, what you would like to see happen. I can't write this without your help. Tell me where you'd like to see the story go. I might listen.
So if you are out there somewhere in the interwebs, I hope you enjoy this novel. I'm gonna get kick out of writing it, it'd be ace if someone got a kick out of reading it.
E
