Outrageous Courageous

This is my first attempt ever at the National Novel Writing Month challenge. I'm excited and nervous, but I see it as the perfect cure to my 10+ years of procrastinating about creative writing. One simply cannot be expected to write good prose when cranking out 50,000 words in 30 days. With that albatross of expectation off my back, I just might be able to write a novel!

My story is about an unemployed asteroid-mining executive who inadvertently helps to save an endangered civilization as he hunts down the con-man who fleeced him of his life savings. I expect it to be adventurous, quirky, sprinkled with wry humor and full of plot holes, character inconsistencies, scientific inaccuracies and downright impossibilities. But then, I didn't promise to write a great novel; I just promised to write 50,000 words in 30 days. As a college roommate once unforgettably told me, "It doesn't have to be possible. It just has to be plausible." (Patrick Judge, if you're out there, EMAIL ME!)

Oh, and I need someone to remind me every day: it's fiction. So by definition it's not true, and probably not even possible, so I can give the internal editor a rest. If I can keep him away on vacation for just 30 days, I believe I may just concoct a plausible and perhaps even entertaining work of fiction. Or a complete waste of paper, but that's a matter of personal taste.

Anyway, I'm excited about the challenge, and hope you'll follow me along my journey. I like the suggestion I read on someone else's blog, namely of posting my word count daily and excerpts periodically. I'll give that a shot.

By the way, I just bought "No Plot? No Problem!", and am ready to dive in. Good luck to all of us outrageously courageous souls who are taking the challenge. Everyone who tries is a winner, because the only thing you need to be a certified writer is to consistently write. Everything else is cocktail chat or pillow talk.