EPTNovember, of course, is national novel-writing month, according to the website "National Novel Writing Month", or http://nanowrimo.org/. The idea is that you write a full novel in one month. I have never completed this challenge. Why? Because it's really hard. That's what she said.
Okay, so, this year, I'm gonna go for it, AND I decided at the last minute on November 2nd to start. So far, I have no story in mind, no concept in mind, nothing inspired to create. I consider these to be minor obstacles, however. I was thinking of writing a novel about someone writing a novel, but it would be super-short and go like this:
"There once was a novelist named Bee who was typing a novel on her typewriter and sipping cups of coffee while wearing a scarf indoors. She had thick-framed glasses and long curly hair. She was the quiet-type, who spent her highschool days more interested in books than boys, and in college, worked vigorously for her literature degree while her skanky friends were all out going to wild parties and having sexual relations with the utmost scrupulous of frat boys. Bee's ambition, however, was not to go all #YOLO, but to produce a brilliant novel. So she sat down and began to write. And then she finished writing it, and it was a masterpiece, the end."
UGH, WAIT! That's not long enough to be a novel!!! WHAT HAVE I DONE!? Damn it!
See what I mean? Novels are like, super-intricate and shit, and go into all this detail about meaningless things, like describing every little thing in the world and all the feelings of all the individual characters and how their feelings relate to all the various features of the world around them and they never to say "Hey wait a minute, why am I soaking in the features of this super-boring world?" and then they break the fourth wall and go "Fuck you, author, fuck you. And fuck you, reader." and I'm like WHOAAAA CALM DOWN THERE LITTLE FELLA.
So, I'm going to write a novel like nothing you've ever seen before. It is an experimental style that will shock the world, and will hurt to read. So yeah, I'm going to bitch-slap all literary conventions with this avant-garde word-vomit, and then will become more famous than J.K. Rowling and will become so famous that normal people won't be able to talk to me.
Edits:
Day 1, (11/03/13): Bad news, I didn't write a single word yet. I went to the gym today, and the room with the treadmills is totally empty. Then this girl who was probably like 90 pounds, who I could easily snap over my knee, gets on the treadmill next to mine and starts running like the 5-0 is coming. But I won. She went for only 30 minutes, with no incline, and had to hold onto the rails a few times. I went for 45 minutes, with the maximum amount of incline, and I only grabbed the rails a few times out of sheer "omg my heart is going to explode any second now", but my legs never stopped moving. It was a moral victory that I will cherish always, but unfortunately, it didn't get shit done in terms of writing anything.
Day 2, (11/04/13): Good news, I wrote about 1500 words. This is turning into a very dark comedy. I think I might have some serious issues, but hopefully, it produces a good story. yay
Day 3, (11/05/13): I did nothing today. NOTHING. I did a lot of conceptualizing though, which I guess is good. I often have a bad habit of starting off with something simple, and then getting super-ambitious with it and then losing my focus because the idea just gets too big.
+ Show Spoiler +
The story revolves around a "game", where one of the players has to find pieces to a larger puzzle while being hunted by an assassin. To do this, he has to find and recruit other players in the game, each of whom holds a piece of the puzzle. The entire arena for the game is a virtual reality which can be altered at whim, because it is basically a dreamscape. The problem facing the characters is that they don't realize they are asleep and this is a dream. The initial world starts relatively normal, and then descends into various levels of abnormality.
The details of the story might come off as me trying to present a metaphor for something, or to preach some kind of world-view, but that's not the intent at all. If I say someone is happy because they have a kitten, then I'm not saying that everyone should have a kitten, or even that I want a kitten. I don't always create characters that follow my beliefs and ideals, and in fact, many of them don't. I always like art that is 'open-ended' - that is, not having a distinct 'purpose' - so that other people can think about things that they may not have thought about before, or express a feeling that they didn't have the words for. I always put pressure on myself to write a good story, but I know if I write, and I like my story, that it will be good. I'm not trying to make a novel to sell, so I don't need to cater to critics.
I don't know how this story will turn out right now, so I'm just going to focus on having fun with it, which means there's going to be lots and lots of subtle humor, cheesy jokes, and gratuitous violence.
