I must be mad

Hmmm, why did I sign up for this?

I have feedreader running all of the time on my notebook, and one of the feeds that I keep an eye on is slashdot - it's usually geek related stories on technical issues, although they do cover popular culture and politics on occasion. I usually just skim the stories but one headline made me click through for more information on 'Kamikaze Novel Writing'.

The idea is simple and beguiling. You write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. That's it. Never mind the theme or the quality. Don't agonize and rewrite. Just get the words down on paper, or bytes in a document, regardless of quality, before the deadline. That's a little under two thousand words a day, allowing a little leeway for slow days.

I have always thought about writing a novel, but never actually seem to have acquired the necessary circular tuit to get started. The regular habit of writing is one of the reasons for doing this blog, so this is something that I can't really pass up. Having signed up, I now feel a little like the author with writer's block in Neil Gaiman's Sandman story Calliope - although I hope I don't need to find my muse in such a brutal or literal fashion.

What am I going to write, given a universe of possibilities? Fantasy or science fiction would seem to be natural choices for a geek like me, although something historical with a bit of rapier based sword play is tempting. Perhaps a modern day story looking at an incident or event from multiple perspectives? A cyberpunk near future dystopia? A civil war in a plague wracked city?

I don't know, but I'm going to ponder the options between now and Halloween. This could be interesting ...