I've Got to Keep Busy...

...because I've been a bit lazy lately. I'm only averaging five blogs a week. Only four of which are really laugh-out-loud funny. Between my blogging, my job, and maintaining my marriage, I just have too much time on my hands. I often find myself with whole minutes left in the day with nothing more than my thoughts occupying them. That's just seems wasteful to me. That's why, starting today, November 1st, I'm taking on another task. I'm gonna write a novel.

For those don't know, November is "National Novel Writing Monty." Thousands of people all over the world started writing furiously at the stroke of midnight November 1st, and continue until midnight November 30th. During that time our goal is to reach 50,000 words. That's almost 2,000 a day. If I was counting my blogging, that would be easy to get to, but I'm not counting the blogging. I'll continue to update my blog (hopefully at roughly five posts a week), but I also be writing a chapter or so a day on my new novel.

What's the book about? That's a good question. I'm not really sure yet. I know my main character is based on a short film I wrote while I was in college. This whole thing is an exercise to just force me to get a book out there. Get the first one out of the way, and then see what I've got. Maybe with a little editing it will be something that people will want to read, maybe not. But either way at the end of this month, I'll be a novelist. Worse case scenario, I'll see some things about the character and his story that will help me rewrite my film. Best case scenario, I'll have a hit book on my hands at the end of the month.

Would you like to read it? Probably some of you would, others are probably thinking, "I read enough from Joel as it is." Right now, it's not possible to read it anyway, but I am exploring giving the novel it's own Blogger page, so look forward to more updates on that in the future. November is a busy month, so I am trying to get a head start by having somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 words at the end of this week. That will allow me some breathing room towards the end of the month, when things get really hectic.

I'm excited about this month (for more reasons than one, I'll get to the others later). I've always wanted to be a writer, and over the last six months I've made a lot of progress towards that goal. Becoming a novelist (even if its a hurredly written piece of fluff) will be another big step. I've got a lot to say, and I look forward to getting it out there. Thanks for reading, commenting, and voting for me over the last month. Incidentally, the final rankings in the "Best Blog/Writer Contest" should be out today, I'll update you as soon as I know something. I appreciate all your help and support. I'd do this even if nobody read it, but it would be a lot less fun.