Nanowrimo’s goal—not mine. I reached the 50,000 word mark on my new novel this morning. But the story doesn’t end there. I have at least 25,000 words left to go, I think. Still 13 days remaining in the month. I might finish first draft before December arrives. I’m going on a research trip at the end of next week to explore the setting, get some reality to blend in with the fiction. Since the round trip is going to be something like 1200 miles on the ground, there may be days when I don’t get any writing done. But the book is going well, so I don’t mind. This has been such a cool experience. I was talking about the story and the characters to my wife during supper last night and it was all so alive in my mind, it was like something I had lived through rather than something I was making up.
My new essay, Crystallization, is now online at Storytellers Unplugged.
I have a four items up for auction on eBay. A first edition (1978) of The Stand, a gift edition of From a Buick 8, a signed copy of Crime Beat by Michael Connelly (a collection of his newspaper articles), and The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
What I’m reading: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. A must-read for literary geeks!
Recently finished: Memories of My Melencholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A brief book about a ninety-year-old man who wants his final fling to be with a 14-year-old virginal prostitute. Not sure how I feel about this one. It’s the sort of book where I feel obliged to use a lot of “yes, buts” to justify it. It’s difficult to make it sound something other than sleazy. Yes, but…
