fealty to the greater you

Happy Halloween, everybody.

I hate to do this to you, but as soon as I return, I go away for a time.  You see, tomorrow marks the start of National Novel Writing Month 2013.  You might recall that I wrote a book last year (which should be published very soon, I promise).  Well, tomorrow I start on my second full-length novel, Tithonus.  You can track my progress here.

I'm going to be very busy writing in November -- I've set a goal for myself to finish 50,000 words within the first two weeks of the month.  That's probably an impossible objective, but I'm going to try, and that means I probably won't have too much time to blog on the side.  What a change, right?

I haven't been blogging at all this month because I haven't been inspired to blog about anything.  In fact, I think I've been especially introspective...so much so that I've been unwilling to share my thoughts with just about anyone.  That's no way to live, so I'm making a conscious effort to be more out there with my feelings in this space.

I've also been kept really busy between work, working out, and getting through a daunting backlog of TV shows.  It's all too easy, with all this on my mind, to let the blog go fallow.  I hope I can keep you a little more informed, especially as I think my writing process this coming month is going to be much, much better focused than last year's.

Last year, I deliberately avoided any planning of my novel at all, outside the basic premise, before November.  This meant I hit the ground running, and wasted a ton of time that could have been used writing trying to figure out what to write.  This year, I've got a strong outline prepared in advance, so I know exactly what should happen at every point in my story.  I have a feeling this is going to make the whole process go a lot smoother.  And, really, I'm more excited about the book.  The things I enjoyed the most about my first book were somewhat incidental to the story -- with the second, I'm deeply involved with the story itself.  Heck, I've even caught myself thinking about the themes I want to examine in the book, which is pretty exciting.

If you look at the progress, you'll notice I've chosen to categorize this year's novel as Horror/Supernatural.  I don't think that's a perfect fit for my plot at all, but I had no idea what else to do.  It's set in the near future, but it's not sci-fi.  It has elements of spirituality, but it's not a spiritual book.  It's pretty thrilling, but it's not a thriller.  And so on...no genre explains it sufficiently for me to really feel comfortable applying a label.  Since the book definitely has supernatural elements, I went with that, but...it's not quite right.

Being impossible to categorize, however, is something that I have always sought to attain in my own life.  I'm pretty happy to be achieving that with my writing, too.  Keep a close eye on me!  If I don't get 50,000 words by the end of November, then you must shame me mercilessly.  Many of you will do that anyway.  As for the rest of you, here's your chance.