Saturday, June 02, 2012

Novel in a Month

National Novel Writing Month (once confined to November) has now begun to spread its fingers into the rest of the calendar year, and I  finally signed up after all these years of telling myself I would. The gist is this: you get 30 days to write 50,000 words. So, by the end of June, I will have one messy, unedited (but completed) novel. Here 'goes nothin'! Or everything. In the words of Annie Dillard: 
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.” (The Writing Life)