Fragmentary

It's an idea I came up with long ago but have never carried out. An attempt to finish various writing projects by choosing one project a month and writing at least a complete first draft. It's a variation on National Novel Writing Month, but not limited to fiction. I signed up a few days ago, on the spur of the moment (once again), for this year's Camp NaNoWriMo and here on day three, I've written 3,000 words so far, but am already behind in my goal of 1,500 words a day with an ultimate goal of 45,000 words.  This month's project is a novel (or possibly a novella) originally titled Bentham's Dream , about a prison in which the most vicious and dangerous criminals are condemned to a life of solitary confinement. The whole thing has been pretty much worked out in my mind over the past several years. What I've lacked is the discipline to actually write it all out. Whatever force pushed me into completing and self-publishing four novels about a decade in the pas...

It takes as long as it takes. Hard to believe that I've been working on  Deciphering Zach  for eight years. It started out with a different title, and a plot that barely resembles the story as I now see it. In all that time, though I've piled up tons of notes and questions to be answered, I've written only one chapter. I've never felt, until recently, that I knew how the novel should be structured. Nor did I feel that I really knew the two central characters: Zach and Harte. Now I'm close enough to solving those problems that I can move ahead and let the two boys reveal themselves fully.  Even though I know them better than I did at the start, I don't know everything about them. If I did, all I'd be doing is dictating, not creating. No one ever knows anyone completely, and that's just as true for writers as it is for anyone else. What's important is the discovery, which can take a lifetime, if you are lucky enough to be granted such a long relationsh...