How to Court Insanity

I said something yesterday about putting up a snippet of a work in progress, and then said that I would not do the one I'm working on now, because it's going to be a novel. I felt it was going to take me too long to finish, and I'm not that big a tease… Yesterday, I read an article that my mentor  Sarah A. Hoyt wrote, where she starts to lay out the guidelines for writing a novel in 13 weeks. Heaven help me, I'm going to do it.

It's not that I haven't done it before. My first completed novel, Vulcan's Kittens, which will come out any time now (I'm waiting on the back cover blurbs, at this point. May seem like a small thing, but, well, there it is) was written largely in 4 weeks. I participated, at my eldest daughter's request, in NaNoWriMo, and made it with over 50K words that month. The completed novel is about 60K words. So I know I can do this.

Here's where the insanity comes in. I am a full-time student, taking a run at a nursing degree. I'm still in the first year of that. I also work a "real" job part time, and I run my own small business. You'll note I have not mentioned my family, although they are just as much work as any of the rest of this!

In order to complete Pixie Noir, my hard-boiled fairy tale, in 13 weeks, with a respectable word count (at random, let's say 60K, I'm not sure the story will hold up to longer than that), I would need to write 4615 words a week, or 659 words a day. Acually, for me that is quite doable, providing I can think out the story I can sit down and pound that out in a half hour. Granted, I probably will not be able to write every day. This Sunday, I'm working all day long, painting shamrocks and rainbows and goodness knows what else on anyone who stops by my table… No green beer for me, though. Ew.

Also, I'm cheating. I already have about 8K words down of this tale. I've been doing research, although I need to do more, soon. Not sure my main character would really be able to handle a Dirty Harry gun, although his personality is definitely that big. So… maybe. If I don't get sick, or the kids don't have a disaster, or… Oh, yeah, did I mention I am moving half-way across the country in 9 weeks, now? Yipe!

Sure, I'm a little mad. All the best people  Writers are, you know.