It is very likely that I will, in the coming month, be posting quite a few updates about my progress with my novel. “Which novel?” you may well ask. And I would reply, “I have no idea, but I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo on the prayer that there’s one sitting in my brain that is worth putting on a page.”
Let’s back it up: apparently November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. It is a time when writers all over the country gather together in coffeeshops and digital community spaces to write together and to encourage each other in its titular endeavor. And, as someone who has taken to referring to her craft as a “writing career”, I felt that I should participate. The problem is that I have no earthly idea what to write about.
I have a couple of fantasy stories knocking around inside my brain. I have a story about current military controversies, as told from several sides. I have an unconventional-family drama. I have the novel I abandoned last year, once I realized that the story arc was DOA. I have an interracial love story that I’ve been toying with since I saw Aida at the age of thirteen (it’s nothing like Aida). I have a story about an Iñárritu-like convergence of strangers. And I have the story of Alexandra Cole, the woman that I would’ve loved to have been in another life.
I have my semi-autobiographical novel about high school. I have a serial drama about odd episodes in my life. I have a highly-romanticized account of my eventual film career. And I have the story that I have not yet thought of, the one that exists in some existential story-space in which a writer must believe in order to craft a truly authentic story.
Anyway. Once I hone in on a story, I expect that I will let you know, dear reader. I expect that this will be the substance of my conversations in November. I expect that I will solicit your interest in my proposed writing career. But I expect most of all that my enthusiasm will simply be impossible to constrain.
Wish me luck, &c., because I have apparently resolved to write a novel.
Manifaustin 