Well, the writing marathon, NaNoWriMo, is finally over. I and my friends Zach and Margreet all won, which is to say, we completed the challenge of writing a 50,000-word rough draft of a novel.
Now, some friends have enquired about when they can read my work, is it public yet, is it “finished” yet, and so on. Here’s an excerpt from an email I sent to a good friend about that:
… I’m discovering that the words “rough draft” seem to mean wildly different things depending on the author, the book, and to non-writers.
I’ve got friends asking me to post it online, as though this is something slightly less polished than the book I envision. NOTHING could be farther from the truth.
I tweeted that my rough draft is so rough, it makes the surface of Mars look like glass by comparison!
The main story arc is pretty much finished… needs to be fleshed out, and needs an epilogue… everything is about as sketchy as can be… Most of the minor characters still are named with XXX as a placeholder!
So, yeah, I pretty much finished a “rough draft” in the roughest, draftiest, most skeletal sense of the word, but yeah, there’s a heck of a lot more for me to discover!
Or to put it more concisely… you don’t even want to think about reading it in this state… I’m probably going to take many months to revise it. I do think it’s a good science-fiction story, and will be seeking to publish it eventually.
As for running, my eight weeks of preliminary conditioning are over, and I’m officially on the training program of The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer. Last night I jogged four miles. Sunday, I’ll do five. And on March 21st, I’ll do more than 26. It’s exciting, and I’ve got to say, endorphins are the best drug in the world! They make it worth it, even in spite of sores, rain, and slogging through mud.
These continuing projects, both turning the draft into a book, and turning myself into a marathoner are great challenges, but I’m already off to a great start, and I’m enjoying the heck out of them.
i am going to start running. even though i hate running. i don’t have to go to the pool to do it, and the road conditions can be unbikeable, and i don’t need many miles of decent pavement.
and all i need is a pair of running shoes.
how goes the running?
This week, it’s been terrible… very, very cold! I’ve missed several days. Also, I’ve changed my goal from a marathon in March to a half-marathon then, and will probably do the marathon in November.
Good luck to you on your running, Julie!
jon
Well… I got the shoes, at least. I guess doing the running would be the next step, huh?? Time to find the iPod Shuffle…
Unrelatedly, I have posted new musings on the blog. Since I post so infrequently lately, I’m just telling people.