I accomplished my mission. I wrote a novel in 30 days that is made up of at least 50,000 words. Well, I wouldn't say the thing is finished. I've got plenty to edit and plenty more to add.

I like the idea of just dedicating a month to one thing. Now I'll have to see how well I keep up with editing this thing and making it worthy of something to be read by other people. This last week about killed me. I took a couple days off from writing because I just couldn't think of much to write and I just didn't feel like filling in some details in some spots. I figure the details will be part of my editing process.

All I gotta say about this process is that just writing some stories and tying them together seems to be the way to go with this. Also, having an idea of a story line before hand probably would have helped me along. I just winged it the whole month, randomly coming up with characters, events, locations, and dialogs as I went along. Some parts of the story left me bothered the next day after writing it, because I wrote about some characters that got me upset. It was crazy writing about a person, then creating a new sibling for them instantly and slightly borrowing from my life story, but drastically changing things and tying it into a fictional life that appeared on the computer screen as I typed.

For now, I'll give you a little excerpt:

"Jake! What's going on? Stop! What are you doing?" Geoff began screaming and hitting Jake. Jake kind of woke up from his slumber and saw the girl under him. He started to smile at the girl he was just with and was about to kiss her when Geoff continued his screaming. "Jake! What are you doing? Why isn't she moving?"

Then Jake saw that his hands were around her throat and saw that she wasn't moving. Jake looked at Geoff. "What's going on? What's going on?" He just kept repeating. Jake tried to wake the girl up. Geoff got out of the car and opened the back door. "Jake, what are you doing? What did you do? You two were having fun just a minute ago then she got real quiet. Why is she like this?"

Jake was stunned. He had no idea. "Uh, I have no idea. I don't think she's breathing." Geoff bent over to listen to her breath. "Jake." He then put is fingers under her jaw to feel a pulse. "Jake. I think she's dead."

"Oh God! What did I do?" Jake was going hysterical. "What did I do? How could I do this? Oh God. I'm in deep sh** now."

Geoff acted like he was struggling internally. "Jake, I know you didn't mean to do this. Maybe if we just leave her here in the alley, nobody will have to know about this."

"Oh God. What? What the hell is going on? Why would I have done this? My own hands were around her neck."

Geoff spoke again to Jake. "Jake, snap out of it. There's no bringing her back. You've got lots more in life to accomplish. There's no way I'm letting the people of this world lose you. I've got your back. If we just leave her in the alley, I'll keep this secret to my grave."

"But what about this poor girl? Her family is going to suffer and never know who did this." Jake was sobering up.

"Jake, don't let the alcohol get to your better senses. Think logically, not emotionally. If there's ever any time to truly apply everything we've ever talked about, it is now. We've got to leave her here. There's no choice. The world already lost one person today. Let's not lose you, too. She was just a prostitute. Do you really think her family cared for her? Even if they did, her present state may actually be a better relief than them having to always worry about her on the street. Come on. Logically, we've got to put her in this alley and try to act like this never happened. That way, you can continue to do the great things for this world that you've got planned. In jail, you'd never get a damned thing accomplished."

Jake was starting to feel a little better about his situation. He knew Geoff was a good friend, but he never imagined Geoff to go this far with him. He was willing to truly apply all the logic he spoke about to his real life. Until now, Jake's logic was only theory. Now he was given a chance to apply it to a very real and authentic life situation. Jake agreed that it was best for the world to only lose one person that night instead of two. Jake in jail is not a good situation for the world. Jake would just make sure that he never drank again and would not be able to kill someone like that again.

Forgive me, humans, for I have sinned. It has been 11 months since my last blog entry....

But it's never too late to say something again. I just stayed up late last night updating the look of the site. I finally finished the tweaks this morning. It has been a brutal, but fairly fast process. The picture at the top is just from a picture I took in NYC.

Why all this work on the site that I never write on?? I'm finally taking the plunge into National Novel Writing Month. I've heard about it for a few years now, but never did the deed. It's a daunting task. You're supposed to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. But the point in this is not to sit there every night editing, tweaking, and scratching your head. No, the point in this is to just do it. Who cares how it comes out as long as something comes out!

I have no plot, no characters, no ideas, but I'm starting tomorrow. I may post excerpts during the month. I may post some of my thoughts and pains of the process. I really doubt that I'm going to be posting the whole thing here on this blog. Who really wants to read 50,000 words of nonsense?

If you've ever thought about writing a novel and told yourself that you'll do it one day, go ahead and join the fun! Visit the NaNo WriMo site to get yourself all geared up. Sign up and start getting your words counted every day.