Novel

Apparently it's National Novel Writing Month. It's abbreviated NaNoWriMo, or just NaNo.



Coincidentally, I've been writing a novel, and it's about NaNo - except I mean Nanotechnology.



I'm up to about 35,000 words. The goal for a NaNoWriMo novel is 50,000 words.



Also, I've been working on my novel since May, 2001, when I did a story outline. I was curious how hard it is to actually write a novel, so on an airplane ride to San Jose to the Sony Developers Conference on March 6, 2002, I wrote the first chapter on my Palm Pilot Prism, which had a fold-out keyboard attached.



Now it's November, 2004, and I'm still not done.



It turns out it is easy to start to write a book but hard to finish a book. It's not so much writer's block for me that slows me down - I know what's going to happen. It's just the size of everything that went before weighs me down. I worry too much about keeping it consistent.



Also, I don't think the book will make it to 50,000 words. It might end up 5,000 or 10,000 words short. Does that make it a novella?



I plan to sell it online, shareware style, for a few bucks. It will be cheap - it's meant to be read during one or two airplane flights (depending on the length of the flight).



People who've read it say it's not bad for a first effort.



The main thing I have left is a big chase scene / fight. Frankly, the idea of it is kind of boring. Maybe I should rethink that and come up with something that gets my juices going.



Then maybe I would finish.