Today is Day 6 of National Novel Writing Month and as I type this I stand at 10,319 words.   In a nutshell, I am writing a science fiction novel, with the science part being somewhat spurious.   This first draft is chock-full of every cliche’ imaginable from t.v. shows and action/adventure movies.  I’ve got the headstrong woman who clashes with the insufferable, yet oh-so-cute, leading man, who looks amazingly like the character Ardeth Bey from the Mummy movies.  

I guess you would call the novel an allegory.  The working title is Timeron and it is the story of  a once-upon-a-time technologically sophisticated society in an alternate earth time-line.  Its infrastructure is powered by the earth’s electro-magnetic energy which can only be channelled by individuals sensitive to this earth energy.  So what happens when this society has a shortage of such gifted individuals who can access this energy and there are no longer technicians who can repair the technology fueled by this energy?  That society falls apart and leaves groups of haves and have-nots who suddenly engage each other in terrible ways.  It leaves a society where science was once revered and now is feared by some as “magick.”  (I really hope no one has ever written a story like this before — if so, someone please let me know!)

Does that sound a little bit like something right out of the front-page news?  Fuel shortages, infrastructure collapse, social and political instability?   I did not intend for that to happen.  I really have no plot as I write the novel,  but the characters have taken off in that direction and I’m just along for the ride. 

I don’t know if I am going to finish this story.  It is labor intensive.  I write about 4 hours to achieve about 2000 words a day.  I don’t want to get behind because I know I will stay behind if I do.

I want to say that if it had not been for the discipline of a daily writing habit that I developed over the past three years working with the abundance of writing prompts and inspiration at Heather Blakey’s Soul Food Cafe (http://www.dailywriting.net/), I would not have even considered engaging in this project. 

Check back here for regularly progress reports. 

Thanks for all the support.