One Ton Rat -- A Gift From My Muse

Once I start to focus on a writing project, bits and pieces of needed research sometimes fall into my lap. My current work, a whimsically ironic apocalytic novel (at least that's what I hope it is, for all I know, it could be just plain silly) proved to be no different. I tried to find odd prehistoric creatures to inhabit my world, but the books I read were either too technical (and lacked pictures) or the animals were too well-known. I figured I'd just have to create some interesting specimens, and then, in the course of a month, several interesting articles appeared on MSN Today in my inbox.

One article mentioned that Uruguayan scientists found the fossil of a two thousand pound rodent that had been as big as a bull. If the secret to writing is to be sadistic and to make awful things happen to your characters, then having my hero contend with such a creature should be wonderfully entertaining. Or at least show what my hero is made of. So what if the rodent has been extinct for two million years? It's my world. I can do what I want. And let my hero suffer the consequences.

(Photo from Msn)

Declaring October as My Novel Writing Month

Chip, the hero in my WIP (work-in-pause) has been running from a volcano for several months now while I spend my words writing articles and commenting on other people’s articles. Poor Chip is getting pooped. (Does anyone use pooped any more to mean tired? Or am I dating myself?)

November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month); aspiring writers from all over the world pledge to write a 50,000-word novel or add 50,000 words to an existing work during those thirty days. (Had to say that silly little grade school rhyme -- thirty days has September, etc., to get the number of days correct.) I planned on doing NaNoWriMo this year to get me focused on my novel again, but then I realized if I wait another month to start, I would find other ways to procrastinate, such as promoting my books. (More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire are going to be published in November.)

So, I am declaring October MyNoWriMo (My Novel Writing Month). I’ve never been able to write 1,000 words in a day let alone the 1,670 words I’d need to write to achieve my goal, but apparently the point is to let the words flow without censoring oneself, and that is what I want to learn how to do. I’m one who edits as I go, and that does tend to cut the output.

I tried to get a head start last night (I already know that I won’t be writing on Thursday because that’s when I have my live writing discussion at No Whine, Just Champagne on Gather.com and I wanted to make up for it), but I fell asleep. Makes me wonder how I ever managed to write and rewrite and edit and re-edit four novels!

Let’s hope my falling asleep isn’t a sign of things to come.

I’ll let you know what happens.

(Could I have used more parentheses?)