(Just Like) Starting Over

I had to make some choices. I had 10,000 words but no momentum.

I looked over these words, squinting, trying to ascertain which ones were guilty of treachery, which ones were whispering to the others to fail to live up to their potential. As a group, they were hovering at room temperature, failing by far to boil over like I wanted them to.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I fired the lot of them. My word count is zero. I am beginning at the beginning.

On the plus side, I have been allowed entry into a cadre of folks racing each other to finish first drafts of their current novels. So far, I'm the odd duck of the group. I'm the only male and the only American. I had to promise not to get testosterone on anything.

So there are new links under the heading "Novel Racers" to the various participants. Some of them are already publishing. Some of them are newbies like me. More than a couple of them seem to write (or be writing) "chick lit," which leaves me the odd duck again. But they were nice enough to let me play along. Click 'em if you like, and learn about them yourselves.

I thought it might be nice to have a bit of the external pressure NaNo gave me. And already their word counts are causing my eyes to narrow in jealousy. So there's that.

I've cleared out most of the next couple of days to get a decent start. I'm hoping to get back to ten grand by Monday. Wish me luck.