Owen Proudly Presents: Blog

This November, a bunch of people have each signed up to write a 175-page novel from scratch. Granted, these don’t have to be good novels, just novels in most basic sense: that is, remarkably long stories. Even so, producing something of that length in 30 days is a fearsome challenge.

In college I typed up a 300-page science-fiction/fantasy novel as my thesis project. It took me about five months. When I turned it in it was a complete, functioning narrative, a solid first effort. It had a handful of good parts and twice as many problems, but looking back, it’s still my greatest writing accomplishment to date.

I’ve revisited it a couple of times per month over the past year-and-a-half, looking over its flaws, tweaking bits, but I’ve never really set out to fix it, utterly and totally, with the force of an organized editorial assault.

But now a hundred-thousand internet strangers over at National Novel Writing Month have conspired to make me look bad for never finishing what I started. How dare you, strangers. Know that on this day I accept your unspoken challenge.

30 days from now, this novel will be finished and in fighting shape. I have vowed it here on the internet, where lies are punished and truth is our most holy currency.

Will this promise come to pass? Or I will be shamed forever?

LET THE COUNTDOWN TO DESTINY COMMENCE.