Today’s Word Count (actual/goal): 918/2000
It is happening again. I’m tackling that grandest, perhaps most romantic, of artistic goals: the novel. Thought it might be neat to chronicle this absolutely-turbulent-don’t-think-it’ll-be-easy-I-may-just-shit-the bed journey here on the site, as a motivator for me and who the hell knows maybe others, and a chance to say Hello a little more often. This is all just an attempt, really, to live up to what Amanda’s doing; she can write a novel without desperately crying out for attention like me.
Why’d I say “again” earlier? Because I’ve written two novels already. One, THIRTEEN years ago (I’m so goddamn old), is the one-hundred-percent drizzling shits, a weak-ass superhero novel. There’s nothing wrong with superhero novels; mine just sucked. The second was finished about five years ago, and is much more “literary,” meaning it was about a sad dude with mommy-and-daddy issues who found a girlfriend and drank too much. It wasn’t that great either. I turned it into a film script, which was about 5% cooler, and then put it away to fade slowly into cobwebs and dried tears.
This will be my third serious try, and you know all the charm-clichés and everything. Writing fiction is what got me started on this artist train all those years ago. I hated poetry. HATED poetry. Refused to write it. So naturally my first book was poems, and I haven’t touched prose since grad school. Time to jump back on the Novel Express, shit or get off the pot, all those sorts of things.
I started the novel, officially, today, although I’ve been researching and preparing for weeks now. Didn’t hit my word count goal because it may be a bit lofty. It’s important to stay flexible with things like that. Also important not to get discouraged when you fall short. It’s an arbitrary number anyway—this ain’t a school assignment.
Keep writing, my buddies. Keep arting. Art your socks off. Art so loud you embarrass the preacher.
–Sean
