Year Three Fizzle, Year Two Redux

Well, that was a bust... YT got to 3,200 words in a few, futile sessions. Excuses? Stress at work, attempts to relieve stress by satirizing work in the novel, Responsibility Junkie not caged with Inner Editor for the month of November, instead sucking away all spare time that should have been spent on the novel. The list goes on much farther than YT's readers -- all three of you! -- would really care about. And the novel sounded so promising before the fact!

No matter. Thanks to the wonders of Linux and science fiction, YT has got some feedback on the Year Two novel. Good feedback, more than the author expected and perhaps a little different from what his friendly critics intended. Our old friend Lena may have some life left in her after all. YT tried to tack something on in front of the terrific first sentence he'd devised. It didn't work. But YT realized the novel would have to change in some of its approach to the reader. Also, the arc of Lena's personal journey became much clearer. YT knows what she must leave behind to become more fully human. And the author now has a terrific second sentence.

In other news, the redoubtable and talented MontiLee has Turned Pro, meaning she's (a) gotten published and (b) will continue to get published. God help us if she doesn't show up in November, because the rest of the WriMo group will be left too much in their comfort zones.

There's the nub of it. The novel only works, and the novel-writing, and the inspiration, if the writer can bravely walk away from comfort. As will Lena someday. As perhaps will the guy in Year Four's novel, who thinks he has the great idea of the century, if not the millennium.