I finished. Well I got to 50,000 words and counting. Still a lot of work to do in the book. But I came, I participated, I competed, I defeated the monster.
I had a great time with this project. I'm not saying I will ever compete against myself in this contest again. However, I'm glad I entered. Who else competed? What are your thoughts?
below read my foreword
Yesterday I saw the final hill and it took all day to climb. Today I was coasting downhill to victory with a good five hours to spare. If you are close, keep chugging along.
Foreword: I have wanted to write a novel for a long time. I vividly remember trying to start a novel several times while an Undergrad at the University of Georgia. At that time, I lacked the discipline and the maturity to get more than a few brief chapters completed. Writing a piece of fiction has been extremely more challenging than the legal writing and the blogging that I have attempted. A lot of those old stories were integrated into this piece including bits and pieces on the civil rights movement and political history. I’ve always been fascinated by race relations and southern politics and the way they are uniquely woven. Also anyone who knows me realizes within minutes that I am a total sports fanatic. I also love feel good sports stories that have made their way into books and the big screen. Some of my favorite movies are those that honor real life stories where sports have been used to promote racial progress and unity. Covering all these important themes of my life is just part of my life’s mosaic.
Starting this project was a result of reading a diary at Daily Kos, a progressive political site, about the National Novel Writing Month Project. On a whim I started and for the first couple of weeks stayed on task making my goal of words each day. However, the third and fourth weeks I felt pressed to find time to write every day due to time constraints with cases and family obligations around the Thanksgiving holidays. I do thank my family for giving me the encouragement and necessary space to work on my writings. I’m sure that they are happy that I’ve been consumed with writing and therefore bothering them less.
Usually, I have a nagging impulse to continuously edit my work. However, I vowed to write and hit fifty thousand words before I would start the editing process. I broke those vows and edited from time to time while in the process of my first draft. My process was to write the story, stop and then come back to some random point. I was continuously pushed by the goal of hitting fifty thousand and unfortunately that did weigh on me more than the quality of the story. Therefore, I’ve had to go back and work on the integration.
This novel is a series of short stories and interesting characters that somehow become integrated. You will have to keep reading until the end to figure out how it all fits together. I would classify my story as a legal mystery patterned somewhat in the style of John Grisham, my favorite author. I’ve read almost all of the Grisham novels and found him as a tremendous influence in his writing style. This is a completely fictional novel and while the characters may resemble real life characters they definitely come from my imagination. I have included some historical knowledge to place the story in the proper context. I hope that you will enjoy turning pages and stay entertained. I included many surprises and I hope that you will follow along with the flashback style of writing.
cross posted at The Progressive Electorate