The NaNo Result

I am sorry for having neglected my blog yet again, but it seems that I was over ambitious with my attempts at writing my novel, plus blogging daily. I always set my standards for myself very high, and this was a good exercise in seeing what I was capable of. As it turns out, I am incapable of maintaining both simultaneously.

The good news is, however, that I am just after finishing my novel!!! I finished with a whopping 50,132 words. Unfortunately, I was gravely misinformed about my novel being posted on the website, or anywhere at all. This means that in order for me to share it I have one of two options: post it here in chapters, or segments, or find some other online host and link it to my blog. More news on that to follow.

After losing my outline, I suffered aimlessly for a few days, until eventually, I ended up changing my novel entirely. It transformed into a celebration of the absurd, puns and all, called "The Makeshift Zoo" which starts with our main protagonist, Jack, being informed that his tiny flat must now house one dozen penguins that his boss has assigned to him. This sets the stage for his "Zoo" which then morphs into a zoo of a different kind, in which he becomes entangled in a variety of bizarre and absurd situations, ranging from meeting a man who stacks books by balancing them on their spines, to inter-dimensional travel.

The format of this novel is a great deal different from what I originally set out for it to be. It is more of a "Conan The Barabrian"-esq collection of stories, tied together only by the characters, and because I made them so. Yes, this is technically a NaNo loophole, but hear me out: my original novel had a theme, a plot, a rising and falling set of actions, etc. However, that is extremely hard to recreate without an outline. I was worried that in the flying burst of creative energy that powered "The Makeshift Zoo" that it would fall short, uncompleted at the end. I am generally a short story and essay writer, one who is making a go of blogging. So writing a zany story in which each chapter is its own complete, start-to-finish adventure, was a much more sustainable project for me to do quickly. Yes, I know, I should be branching out and attempting to work on longer pieces than just stories, and I am toying with the idea of writing another, real novel, but for the sake of being able to tell myself "Wow, you did it, 50,000 words in a month," I needed to focus on something I could reasonably accomplish. And, I am quite fond of the final project.

As it is utterly unedited, I may go back and take the best parts of it out and turn them into short stories. Or perhaps I will keep the work a collective whole. Either way, go me! My account was lovingly dubbed "racoon222" for inane reasons, and here is a picture of my winning word count.

Why yes, my author image is my circus club's logo.