The Novel

This is the story that's possessed me for over a year now. It was a year back in May, I think, so that means that I've been dealing with this monstrosity for a year and a couple months. It started with a dream that involved Gerard Butler and evolved from there; it's become so much more than that stupid, fangirly dream. Now it's about politics and war, love and acceptance, and everything in between. It's about recovery and catharsis.

Knowing all that doesn't help me write it one bit. Because no one, besides me, gives a damn about it's themes. If there's anything that reading Janet Reid's excellent blog, Query Shark, has done for me, it's drilled into my head that:

1) you never put your contact information at the beginning of an email query letter

2) you have about a sentence and a half to get the agent's attention so you better not waste time or words

3) people don't give a damn about themes when they paid for a story

So themes don't matter. Characters do. From characters come a story and that's what readers want. That's how you get published, not how you become a best-seller. Becoming a best-seller is, of course, what everyone dreams of, including me. But that's like buying a lottery ticket every week for your whole life and never losing hope that you'll win eventually. And that's damn near impossible.

I decided to completely revamp my story last night. The plot's still the same, the backbone of my main character is still the same. In fact, I can still pull the same writing exercise from November when I started NaNoWriMo and had no idea what the fuck I was doing. But the characters have changed, and that's a good thing.

I started to write last night and I have a couple hundred words of the story I always meant to tell.