About how my novel is doing, of course (and why I’ve really decided to put myself on blast by blogging about it all).  I’ve been doing this illegalwriting thing for a couple of months, and have now actually had real-life conversations with people who have read it (my friends, but still readers). In these convos, I’m usually asked, “how is the novel going?,” and “what’s it going to be about?”  Fair questions, especially since I didn’t provide much explanation when I began this whole thing.  So in light of these inquiries, I’m going to use this post to shed a little bit of light on what was going on in my head when I decided to “write a novel” and then blog about process, as well as update you all on its status.

On how it’s going:

As for the novel itself, I have to admit that I haven’t really done a lot—but this is intentional!  If you look to the right of this webpage, you’ll see that I have given myself until January 14, 2014 to basically finish a first draft.  Not to get published, not to make it “good,” but to have a story that has a beginning, middle and end.  Some writers, in fact, maybe most writers (or even most people) need quite a bit of time to compose a long document, even to just get the words on the page. I, on the other hand, do not.  Once I have an idea, I write fast.  Like these blog posts take me 30 minutes.  The consequence of this gift/curse (and if you’re truly an illegalwriting fan, you’ll know this already) are typos and errors; however, to me, that’s a small price to pay for the psychological benefit of progress. Plus, I like editing.  Since I know I can write fast, I’m taking this time to focus on the concept and do some “research.”  This means reading a few more books, having a couple more discussions with other writers and living a few more months of life.

So, how is the novel going? Great! What is it going to be about? TBD! But trust me when I say that this is happening. IT IS HAPPENING. (That last sentence was more for myself, but whatevs.)

On the decision to blog:

As for why I decided to put myself out there and tell everyone I know that I want to do this—well, there are several motives behind that.  First, when the idea came to mind, I wanted to start writing and to incorporate it into my routine right away! I was inspired, and felt the need to turn that inspiration into something tangible, immediately.

Second, I try to produce what I like to consume.  In this case, that means documentation of the journey. For example, Obama’s 2008 election felt extra special to me because I had been following the campaign from the days when his chances were very, very slim.  Or, (if my comparing myself to Obama is a bit much for you), consider Bravo’s Bethenny Frankel (yup, bringing it back to the low-brow girl stuff): basically, she was on some random, unknown reality show, single and poor, talking about how she wanted to be rich, successful, and married with babies.  Mindless Real Housewives of NYC episode after mindless episode, you see her trials and tribulations and catfights until BOOM! She sells her SkinnyGirl Margarita for $100 million (I said $100 million dollars!), and has managed to find the love of her life and have a kid.  The whole thing is impressive on its own, but, more importantly, somewhere along the way I unconsciously became invested in her success. And at the end, I actually was inspired.  That’s cool.  Maybe at the end of this I will have had that effect on someone.  At least that’s my hope.

Third, I write fast. I write this blog because I can.

Did I answer your questions?