NaNoWriMo 2022 Week 1 - A Quick Review

On the plus side, I am managing to write every day and have managed to push the story forward in what could be interesting ways.

On the other hand, I have not been able to build any kind of momentum yet.

Yet, I remain hopeful and invested in the process. I am enjoying the time I have been able to spend on the project.

NaNoWriMo 2022

Yes, I seem to be participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. September and October were crazy with travel and other things, which is my excuse for being even less prepared than usual this year and getting off to a crazy slow start. Only 2,129 words so far.

Days 1 and 2 were especially slow (578 words and 293 words, respectively), since I had very little story in mind and no conflict at all. An actual story idea clicked overnight and I was off to the races this morning, adding over 1200 words in just a couple of hours. Then it was off to run errands and I'm beat and will pick it up again in the morning.

I'm pretty sure there is nobody reading this blog, other than me. So, there is nobody else to be shocked that I'm actually writing a post that isn't a book reaction or an end-of-year reading summary. But I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a daily contributor to the mess that is Twitter these days. And Facebook is still not blog or a microblog. So here we are with what I have available.

read: Private Investigations: Mystery Writers on the Secrets, Riddles, and Wonders in Their Lives (4 stars)

Private Investigations: Mystery Writers on the Secrets, Riddles, and Wonders in Their Lives by Victoria Zackheim
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was not what I was expecting. Maybe I didn't read the cover blurb closely enough. I just saw the names of some favorite authors and how they 'cope with the perplexing world and what keeps them up at night.' What I got were those same authors, and more, telling some of their most personal stories and how those stories made them into the writers they have become. Well done, intriguing and worth a read (or two).

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read: Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing (4 stars)

Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been writing first drafts for NaNoWriMo by the seat of my pants for several years. Every once in a while I try a lightweight outline method to 'really be organized, this time' and still wound up with a mess. I quite enjoyed this author's lighthearted approach and I think the light may have finally gone on about how to formulate a meaningful story. This probably isn't the silver bullet for killing the beast of writing a novel. But I'm going to give it a quick rescan and see if I can apply it to this years' NaNo.

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read: Great Stories Don't Write Themselves (4 stars)

Great Stories Don't Write Themselves by Larry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An effective (for me) tutorial on some aspects of story that had been eluding me. Most of the focus is on understanding the criteria involved in the macro aspects of story: premise and concept, along with the related concepts of character, setting and plot.
Then he uses those criteria to present and break down story structure in way shows why even an organic writer eventually succumbs to structure in order to succeed (as a opposed to a outliner who struggles with the structure up front).
It's all nicely down-to-Earth and friendly and something that can be referred to again and again. There are no real surprises here. It's all been said before. But the author presents it in a way where several light bulbs finally illuminated for me.

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read: Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood (5 of 5 stars)

Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Straczynski has used his considerable storytelling skills to tell his story. It is personal, unflinching and deeply moving, telling a rags-to-riches, hard-work-pays-off Hollywood story without being cloying, sensational  or scandalous. If you're a fan of Babylon 5, Superman, Spiderman, or comic books in general, this is required reading. If you're a writer struggling for inspiration, you'll find it here. If you're just looking for an engrossing story of endurance and overcoming circumstances, this is what you want.

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read: Elements of Fiction (3 stars)

Elements of Fiction by Walter Mosley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short, quirky meditation on the role of character in fiction. There are no tools for the beginning writer here. Just some encouragement to think deeper thoughts about how character can drive story, if that's the type of story you are writing. Glad I got it from the library.

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NaNoWriMo 2017 Ain't Happening

This was my 13th attempt at NaNoWriMo. It is now my 3rd instance of not finishing (see 2009 and 2013). I have mixed feelings about this, as usual. I'm obviously disappointed. This is something I look forward to and boast about and enjoy. Mostly I'm relieved. What are this year's excuses?

1. I became a grandfather. We spent a week focused on family. As my wife keeps reminding me, I have the best excuse ever.
2. Statistics don't lie. In previous years, I've hit flat spots in production and had to pull out all the stops (including some 6K and 8K word days) to succeed. But this year, I had a full week of no output. And when I did get back into it, production it was not matching what I needed to push the curve to the top. I was only achieving a normal pace.

Basically, I had 30% of my words and was 60% into the month. That looks like I was halfway there. But look again. I needed to produce 70% of my words in only 40% of the month, with more holidays and family time in the mix. I can write pretty quickly. But I've never been one of the NaNoWriMo overachievers that cranks out 50,000 words (or even 25,000 words in a single week).

3. The words were not flowing. Even though I was writing in a world I thoroughly enjoy and thought I had a good story concept, that's all it was, a concept. And even that had kept shifting as I did my planning in the previous weeks. I had the protagonist. But no antagonist. I didn't have enough of a specific situation. I tried to write my way into it, like I usually do. But things were not really clicking. And my analytical brain kept me from just doing a worthless word dump (believe me, I tried). Hence, not enough words per day.
4. Besides the grandfather thing, other life and commitments were piling up and I was getting too stressed out to completely enjoy my writing time. 

On the good side:

1. I still love the world I was writing in. I will finish this story. This year's NaNo project is the third book in what I think is a trilogy. I do know what basically has to happen. I just need to break down the story better before I write.
2. My attempt to write my way in revealed holes in my world-building for the entire series that need to get repaired. I will continue to work through that during the rest of the year and then get back into writing production (I promise) after the first of the year.
3. 10 out of 13 ain't bad, ya know. I read that only 30% of those that attempt NaNoWriMo actually 'win'. I've beaten those odds. And I will again.

So, pass the remote and bring on the turkey. I have some shows to get caught up and some holidays to enjoy. I should get back to the gym, too.

My 2016 In Books

By the skin of my teeth and a few last minute graphic novels, I read 52 books in 2016, which was the goal I set. At times, this felt like a bit more of a chore this year (compared to last year, when I had the same goal), like I was under pressure to perform. I think there are a few reasons for this:

1. Long books. I decided to attack several longer works this year and that made it more challenging to keep up. I've been avoiding longer books in previous years in order to enhance my bottom line. Forsaking any of these would have added 1 or 2 additional works to my 'done' pile. But then I would have missed:
1. Game of Thrones (wondrous)
2. Leviathan Wakes (stupendous - 5 stars)
3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and …the Order of the Phoenix (there's a better, shorter book inside each of these)


2. Fewer graphic novels. These have been a way of keeping up the overall book count without investing large amounts of time. I read 14 in 2015, but only 7 in 2016. My favorites were:
1. Leaves on the Wind (Serenity #4) - good follow-up to the Serenity film for Firefly fans
2. Lost in Space - The Curious Galactics - just like a TV episode (because it's based on unproduced scripts)
3. How to Talk to Girls at Parties - Neil Gaiman (need I say more? I also loved the short story)


3. Netgalley. I trapped myself into 9 titles on Netgalley in 2016 (vs. only 4 in 2015). On the whole, this was a good thing. I read a couple of titles I would have otherwise missed. But it did mean I felt the pressure to perform (and I'm still behind on posting feedback). I'm not a reviewer. I know what I like. Putting that into words does not come easily. Some surprises:
1. IQ (a quirky mystery novel that doesn't read like one)
2. Mug Shot/Whole Latte Murder (#2 & #3 in a chick-lit series that I enjoy more than I should)
3. Curious Minds (an unexpectedly dull and unfunny book from Janet Evanovich)

Some other treats this year:

1. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is quirky and fun and marvelously performed on audio book. 5 stars
2. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ranson Riggs is also quirky and fun and worked remarkably well on audio, considering it is based on odd photographs. (What's the deal with possessive titles with P's in them?)
3. In the Clearing and The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni, the 2016 and 2017 releases in the Tracey Crosswhite series. The biggest benefit of Netgalley is getting to read stuff before it's generally available. I bought both of these (and his 2016 stand-alone The 7th Canon), anyway.
4. The Emperor's Revenge by Clive Cussler and Boyd Morrison took me on a completely different trip than I expected.

My Goodreads.com 2016 wrap-up is at https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2016/3195690

I'm going to keep reading in 2017, but will slow the pace a little.

1. Fewer Netgalley books. That was too much pressure and I have plenty on my TBR list already, including…
2. Finish off more series. I probably won't get through much more of Game of Thrones (actually A Song of Ice and Fire) or The Expanse. I do plan to finish Harry Potter, Old Man's War, Wool, and Cinder and get back to Mystborn (at least the 'alloy' era) and Reckoners (Steelheart). Just this list could fill up my entire year. Except I also want to…
3. Read more Young Adult titles. One reason I want to reduce the pressure on my reading is to do more writing and my current project is shaping up as YA. I need to understand the genre.

Keep reading! And share a book with a friend.

read: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (4 stars)

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great little book to set on the shelf beside King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft or Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. It's not so much a book about how to write as about how to be a writer. Why do you write? Why should you write? Who are you writing for (or to)? These are all questions that need to be answered. Anne Lamont doesn't try to answer them for you. But she gives you a little bit of insight into her answers and why the questions may be more important than the answers.

If it's too cold and stormy to get out and have coffee with your writing buddy and you can't get them on the phone, read a chapter or two in Bird by Bird. It may be just what you need to get writing again.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

NaNoWriMo 2016

I'm doing it again: National Novel Writing Month. 30 days. 50,000 words. This is my twelfth year in a row of trying to write a novel. I've only come up short twice (although calling any of the 'successes' a novel is generous beyond words).

Why do I do it? Why do I get up early and try to stay up late, staring at my computer screen, pounding out my 1,667 words a day? Why do I go into panic mode during last few days, sometimes forcing my self to crank out up to 6,000 words in a day?

Why?

Because I love it. Because when I finally push aside the distractions and focus on the page and get into the flow, the characters speak to me. They tell me their story and I try to get it down as fast as I can. Some days they are quiet and I have to coax and cajole the stories out of them and only get a few hundred words. Other days I simply neglect them and feel rotten about it. But that's just too bad because I have a life, too. This isn't just about them.

I told myself that this year I would have an outline.

I don't.

I told myself that I would be ready.

I'm not.

I had to spend part of my writing time getting my tools ready: 

• a brand new OneNote notebook to capture my words and my research and my notes. I love OneNote because I can access it from anywhere, keep everything in one spot and (most importantly) keep all my work automatically backed up.
• copy notes from the first novel in this series to the new notebook so that I can keep them as consistent as possible.
• connect my Surface 3 to the network at work so that it has all that latest stuff and I can work on my new novel just about anywhere.
• update the NaNoWriMo site, all my social networking sites, and this blog, just in case someone besides my family and close friends is keeping tabs on my progress. I don't want it to look like I'm neglecting any channel.

As a result, I am about 300 words short of my goal. But my eyes are starting to slam shut. Time to get to bed so that I will get a few more minutes of sleep before my stupid author brain wakes me up at 0-dark-it's-way-too-early with ideas on how to change around all the words that I've already committed to bits today.

My plan, as usual, is to shoot for at least 1,000 words a day on work days and 3,500 words on each weekend day. That averages out to the 1,667 per day that gets me to 50,000 words by the end of the month. Of course, as usual, there are complications. I don't just mean Thanksgiving. I mean extra commitments on top of Thanksgiving that will make it nigh impossible to get much writing done for four or five days. So that word count has to get added into the other days of the month. And then there are those unforeseen unproductive days.

Why?

Why do I do this to myself?

Because I love it.

Words written today: 1,354

Monthly total: 1,354

#amwriting

read: Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology (4 stars)

Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

These are some pretty good stories. Be aware, though, that there are only four of them. The bulk of the book is for writers - first drafts, transcripts or brainstorming and critique and the like.

I haven't yet read through the supplementary material, though I've listened to a bunch of it on the Writing Excuses Podcast. Good stuff.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Authors and Web Sites and Platform, Oh My!

As I mentioned earlier (Dehosted and Rehosted), I had to find a new virtual home for my small amount of personal web site content. The move has given me the opportunity to rethink the content of that site. Up until now, it's been a haphazard collection of widgets and links to my haphazard collection of (so-called) social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Goodreads and BlogSpot (but not yet Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr and Google+), along with a sort of personal profile in bullet-list form.

It turns out, I had already been thinking about what I should be doing with my web site to prepare for promoting my authorly activities, assuming I would buckle down and turn one of my projects into something publishable in the not too distant future. I wanted to at least polish up my bio and weed out the less pertinent tidbits and links.

That still leaves some questions to answer. How does someone who has not published a book create an 'author' web site? What should a writer who has written at least eight unfinished novels (for National Novel Writing Month and in-between) say about their creations? Should I list them? Describe them? Should I be teasing about projects that are in-progress or the worlds I have created for them? Or just wait until I have something finished and at least submitted before doing that? I know I should (and want to) spend more time writing and finishing the stories than producing 'extra' content about them.

Of course, there are plenty of folks out there with opinions on what such a web site should include. I found this one on Creating a Website as an Unpublished Author by Amanda Luedeke pretty insightful. I guess I'll keep it focused on who I am and what might make my work interesting. I'll leave a few clues about the sort of stories I've been writing (maybe super short blurbs about my NaNoWriMo work). Keep the social media links intact. And work harder to keep the blogs active.

Meanwhile, until I get my site settled and a book published, have a look at the web sites (and books!) of some my favorite authors. They give me something to aim at and I'm amazed to actually call several of them friends.

• Robert Dugoni
• Boyd Morrison
• Guy Pace
• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Cherie Priest
• Jessica Lourey
• John Scalzi
• Neil Gaiman

Dehosted and Rehosted

I haven't put much effort into my personal web site in quite a while. There was not much point. I'm not selling anything. I'm horrible at blogging (I have a couple of infrequently updated channels). It was fun to play around with HTML and some layouts and graphics, back in the day. But it was easy to just ignore it. There were plenty of other ways to spend my time and effort (or not).

Then Comcast forced my hand.

Since I use them as my Internet provider, I have been hosting what little content I did have on their free service. It had a somewhat ugly URL (http://home.comcast.net/~billwnet/), but that was easily dealt with by simply forwarding my much easier to type domain (billw.net) there. They recently decided to discontinue the free hosting. I had to find a new place to host my stuff.

My options:

1. As a consolation for discontinuing the web hosting service, Comcast gave their subscribers two years of a Pro subscription to Weebly.com. Weebly offers drag-and-drop web site construction and a spectrum of features and services.
2. Add hosting to one of my GoDaddy domain registrations. This would allow me to either upload my existing, but lame, web content or use their web site constructor to create something more interesting. Either way would cost me a little more each month.
3. Research and find another way to get free, or almost free, hosting. Been there, done that. I'd probably wind up and someplace like Squarespace.com (a Weebly competitor) or back at GoDaddy.

For now, I'm going with option #1. Why not? It's paid for (for two years). The functionality seems fairly reasonable. It even takes care of making the site compatible with the smartphone form factor and I can use one of my existing domains for it. The only thing is, I can't just upload my existing site content (just a bunch of HTML). I need to recreate it. I might as well take the opportunity to update what I have and make it more attractive.

More on that in a subsequent post. For now, you can find my new web site (in progress, under construction and all that) at billweinberger.net.

read: The Sun, the Moon, & the Stars (4 stars)

The Sun, the Moon, & the Stars by Steven Brust
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this based on the recommendations from several authors. I share their high opinion about the insights it portrays into the creative process and the creative mind. There isn't much story here, but the characterizations and the framing devices keep things moving and interesting.

I give it high marks for overall theme and structure. The intermingling of the current tale with a Hungarian folk tale and even the subject matter of the painting the narrator is working on is pretty brilliant.

On the other hand, the writing might be a little too self-aware, even for a first-person narrative. It's also somewhat awkward and clunky at times. There's nothing I can really put my finger on. Maybe it just felt a little dated. For something written in the 1980s, it had more of a 1970s feel.

I'd still recommend it, especially to creative types: writers, artists, musicians. The ruminations and discussions on what art is and how it is produced are thought provoking and worth the read. I might even re-read this, as other authors do, when I need reminding of why we do art.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

read: Million Dollar Outlines (4 stars)

Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great, easy-to-read guide to putting together novel length stories. It's not just a how-to, it's also a so-what and why. I think I now have a better understanding of the elements needed to create compelling stories, along with some good tips on how to make it happen.

The specific tool I was looking for was Farland's "story puzzle" device I heard mentioned on a recent episode of the "Writing Excuses" podcast. The way it was mentioned, I thought it might be at the very beginning and the rest of the book would just add depth. Farland knew better. He spends the first third of the book helping the reader understand how stories work, the next third sifting through the pieces needed to create a good story, and the last third offering some tools to make it happen. But still no "story puzzle".

Finally, there in the appendix "Exercises To Increase Productivity" it looks like I've found the story puzzle exercise and I will try to use it on my next book.

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NaNoWriMo Washout 2013

So I didn't finish NaNoWriMo this year. Again. This was my ninth attempt but only my second washout.

It doesn't seem like anyone is surprised. Except me. At least a little. I really thought I could do it. Maybe.

I knew I could overcome the usual odds: only about 30% of participants achieve a winning word count. After all, I've finished seven times before, plus three successful attempts at Script Frenzy. I've had fun. Writing is almost always fun. The words start flowing and as long as I have the time and focus, I can pound out the requisite 50,000 words and still have a bit of a life in November. 

The last time I didn't finish, there were extenuating circumstances (which you can read about here). This time around I guess I saw the writing on the wall and simply chose to ignore it. What happened?

1. Not to be too blunt about it, but this year my Dad passed away. It happened 5 weeks before the start of NaNoWriMo. He was pretty sick for a couple of months before that and I was pretty wrapped up in helping my family take care of him. Then he was gone and it hit us all pretty hard. But I decided that at least trying to accomplish another NaNoWriMo was better than not trying at all. If I was lucky, I might even get some sort of a crappy draft I could use to write a real novel some day. Nope. No such luck. Grief is a tricky beast. It sits there quietly for a while, letting you think everything might be all right and you can get back to living your life. You even get some days when you write 3 or 4 thousand words. Then it sits up and simply devours your life for a time, hours if you're fortunate, days if you are not. It consume several days of writing in November. I had a lot of days with nothing to show. And just as many with only a few hundred words.
2. Family is a wonderful thing and usually pretty manageable in November. Most years, we NaNoWriters only have to worry about losing Thanksgiving Day itself to family, along with a few other obligatory hours here and there. This year, however, in the context of the loss of my Dad, family time became precious time and it was difficult to let any of it go. That cost me at least another five full days. It's possible I could have written for at least part of a couple of those days, when I was just traveling. But truth be told, my heart wasn't really in it.
3. That's really the core issue here. This year, my heart just wasn't in it. On top of the obvious, I chose the wrong story to work on this year. I needed something that would fire up my imagination, something that would get me out of the here and now, and something that didn't require a lot of wrestling with reality. I needed something big and bold and crazy. For some reason, I instead chose a quiet mystery story where I didn't understand the mystery or the characters involved or the McGuffin. I thought I had enough to just get rolling and let the writing lead me, but that didn't happen.

So here I am at the end of another NaNoWriMo with only about half the words I need to win. As recently as yesterday, I thought maybe I could use the last three writing days to at least put me over 30K (or even 35K!). It's not happening. Am I disappointed? Only a little. At least I tried. At least I had a bit of a distraction from all the other stuff. And maybe I learned a couple of things.

1. If I ever tackle another straight up mystery, I can't settle in with a subtle antagonist. I need somebody with a genuine evil purpose. I need someone trying to make something happen that captures the attention of my protagonist. I need something more entertaining than based in reality. I also need to work out the antagonist's plans and purposes before I dive into the protagonist's story of discovery.
2. Corollary to that, a mystery requires a more detailed outline, timeline and map. Who's related to whom? On what days do things happen? Where do things happen? Those questions have to be answered before writing the first sentence. I was already becoming convinced of this. Now I'm more convinced. I just need to do it. This requires patience and focus and application.
3. Corollary to that, next time I come up on NaNoWriMo and want to participate and don't have a well constructed outline, etc., I will rummage around in my trove of story ideas and, instead of choosing the most sensible one, I will choose the most outlandish one. Maybe that will give me a big enough sandbox to play in and write 50K words in 30 days.

In the meantime, where's the remote? I've got 3 or 4 weeks of television to catch up on.

The Thrill of Clocks

I'm no expert about writing (yet). But I know what I like when I'm reading. And when I'm reading a thriller, I want thrills. I want to be forced to turn the page to find out what happens next.

Compare and contrast two recent reads, both thrillers set in Washington, D.C. What did one have that made me remark that it had 'a tight plot with page-turning suspense' and the other (which I have yet to finish) feel like it's almost a chore to keep plowing through? Both stories involve conspiracies that the protagonist has to unravel. Yet one was riveting and the other feels limp. As I said, I'm no expert, but one thing that seems to be missing from the second book is the almighty ticking clock.

In the first book, the ticking clock is the revelation that a terrorist attack is imminent. At first the protagonist and the reader are in the dark about the who, what, where, when and why. We just know it is very bad and it is coming soon. As the mystery is unraveled, the threat becomes more dire and the timetable shorter and shorter. The clock is ticking.

In the second book, there is no ticking clock (at least not in the first half of the story). And there is no imminent threat. There is an assassination attempt on the President in the first chapter. But after that there is only mystery. We already know the what, where and when. We are even given a purported who and why. We are now supposed to care that the who and the why are probably red herrings and a larger conspiracy is at work. But why should we? I'm halfway through the story and all we have are vague threats and inconclusive clues. There is no ticking clock or burning fuse evident. The danger is past. The thrill is gone. It remains to be seen if the suspense and action will ramp up in the second half.

I see now that the thriller I am working on needs a ticking clock. It has a bang up opening, like the second story above. But all it has after that (so far) is a mystery (like the second story). I know there is an imminent threat. I need to make sure the reader sees it and feels it, too. It does not have to be revealed all at once, there needs to be suspense. But in order to have suspense, they need to see the bomb under the table or the killer lurking in the shadows. They need to be thrilled. Otherwise, I'm writing a mystery and not a thriller.

Chapter 3

Yes, I've started it. I wasn't even sure what I was going to do for it until I sat down. But I managed to find a way to transition from the two opening chapters I tacked on and slip back into my original outline. Not that I'll manage to stick to the outline from here on out. But you've got to start with something, don't you?

Anyway, 275 words, some research, and some reorganizing and we're still underway.

Is Through The Only Way Out?

I was trying to figure out why I don't seem to be very excited about working on my current writing project. I'm only a couple of chapters in on a Page 1 Rewrite (actually more like Page -100, since I decided it needed to start much earlier than the short first draft did). At this point I should still be enthusiastic about the new project and cranking away at it. Shouldn't I?

I think the problem is that I've spent almost three months on the outline and these first couple of chapters (and the chapters don't actually fit the outline, so it's out of date). When I work on something in NaNoWriMo, I get through an entire draft in 30 days. It's fun. It's exciting. It's nerve wracking. Without that pressure to be done with 50,000 words by a certain time, I've been doing my procrastination thing and stretching things out.

I need to just write. Today I did a skosh over 500 words and it feels a little better. But I still think I've been working on this one thing for far too long. Other projects are dancing around in my head. I've been writing them down as they come up, trying to stave them off. I'm tired of Winter and the project seems to be part of Winter, so I'm tired of it, too. It seems very appealing to take another break from the current project and start more in earnest on something new, something Spring-like.

But I'd also like to finish what I've already started. To date, since 2005, I've started a half-dozen novels and a few short stories. I've finished and submitted one short story (to a conference contest) and finished a decent draft of another short story. All of the novels are in draft-zero form, or less.

I think in order to finish something, however, I need to do it in a more compressed timeframe. Something more than 30 days, so I don't ruin my life. But certainly it must be less than four to six months. Simple math tells me that if I truly write 1,000 words a day, six days a week, I will have 72,000 words in 12 weeks, or 3 months. In that case, I would be well over half-way finished with a sizable first-draft before my week 6 malaise set in. Maybe.

Maybe it's worth a try. Then again, I think I'll see what chapter 3 of this work in progress holds for me tomorrow. I've heard that the "only way out is through."