I am going on a journey. A writer's journey. I have made my booking, made my commitment to travel from chapter one to chapter ? At this stage I do not know how many chapters there will be. The destination is 60 000 words and I hope to last the distance. My word train leaves on November 1, by then I will be packed and ready. The journey concludes on November 30. This call to adventure came on September 1. I had three projects clamouring for attention, one social history,one crime fiction and the other a memoir. I was waffling and dabbling in all three and getting nowhere fast. I needed a deadline to break out of my procrastination. The decision to write a book in a month seemed like a good idea. Like all successful journeys, this one had to be planned. First I had to leave my comfort zone, make my decision public, do the ground work...get out of bed earlier.
The word train lingers at the station while we take on board what is needed for the journey. Ideas, the necessary elements, begin to appear. Like the usual traffic before departure, some arrive quickly and others drag their feet as they dawdle along. Some ideas arrive without a ticket and are rejected, some decide to wait for a later train and others become something else. As I mull over the crowds of ideas jostling for a berth, plot and character begin to make their presence felt. I test what is logical and what doesn't work and I realise the wisdom of waiting . It is a mistake to begin writing too soon, before all the actors are assembled and ready to await their curtain calls.
There are eleven thinking days left before the writing begins.
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