The Brookston Family Blog

OK, I decided to write a novel this month. Yeah, it was kind of a surprise to me, too. There's this sort of goofy organization known as NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, which is November. They sponsor a challenge to write a 175-page (50,000 word) novel in 30 days. "Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." I thought, what the hell, it sounds like a fun, bizarre exercise. So my working title is The Ghosts of Autumn. Using the symbolism of seasonal decay, a middle-aged man grappling with his own mortality flies home for a funeral and confronts both the reality of death and the unreality of lingering regrets of his youth as he revisits the haunts where the ghosts of his youth now taunt him. You know, a comedy. It will probably suck, I mean who rights 1,500 words a day? But that's the plan. But I'm just thinking of it as an exercise to get my writing chops up by just doing a lot of it in a short period of time. If you're really bored or have a lot of time on your hands, you can follow along since I'll be writing the novel on a blog I set up for just this purpose. It's called November Novel and there should be a new chapter at least every day. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.