Not Funny
Friends at work convinced me to join the NaNoWriMo project this year. It’s where you write a novel, 50,000 words, in a month. I’m keeping pace after day one, keeping ahead of the count you need to finish. I’ve noticed a few things, though.
1. When they tell you that your stuff will include a lot of crap, that is so unbelievably true. I think anyone reading my novel would fall asleep, or decide to get off the toilet, within about 37 seconds.
2. That there’s crap is beneficial, because it reinforces my long-held belief that the magic will sometimes come in the writing, but it’s more often in the editing. I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year in spite of the other two projects I had in mind because the first few sentences of the fiction piece struck me from out of the Washington gray skies. I liked those lines. Everything else since has been really bland.
3. I put my book in the “Satire, Humor & Parody” category, but so far it’s not very funny. I’ve got a decent premise going, but I like the humor I find in writers like Steve Martin or Lewis Grizzard. They go along telling you a story and drop in lines here and there that strike you. I’m not funny in the first draft very often.
4. Editing is the beauty. Writing this novel will be fine. Editing it will be hard, but if this thing is to be worth a read at all, the editing will be necessary.
5. Come the end of November my intention will likely be to go back to my other projects and work on those with at least half the intensity I’ve demonstrated doing this work. My rationale for doing the novel was that it could spark some creativity that will benefit those works. On Dec. 1 I might change my mind.
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