In my last post, oh too long ago, I mentioned that I am working on a book. I could say that I'm working on a novel, but what I am supposed to say is that I am writing a manuscript. A manuscript is your pre-publication novel. I wanted to come up with a more pithy version of this laborious word but "mani" and "manu" don't do it justice.
The next obvious thing is for me to give you my elevator pitch for the nov--... boo--... manuscript. I have problems with this. It's not easy to tell the tale of this story, since it's still germinating, in a Tweet-sized bite. I'll start with genre. There is a well-known literary genre called chick lit. This covers most novels written by women about women. I'm sure there are exceptions. My book is on the other end. It's dick lit. This is fiction for guys.
About four years ago I wrote a "year in the life" series of stories that were about a guy named Larry Smith. The stories could together be considered a novel, although I never completely finished the ending. Read it, if you dare. http://ztlwrites.blogspot.com/
This is in the same genre. The Larry Smith story was about a single guy's quest to keep his life the same when events conspire to change him no matter what he does about it. He's in a fantasy football league. One of his friends dies and there's funeral. I did try to shoehorn in some time travel but it didn't really work as much as I loved the idea of writing time travel.
That's what writing can be. What you think is the "good stuff" doesn't work. Every word feels like a new life you have created and sometimes you have to suffocate them.
Anyway, on to the story. About three months ago a friend of my wife's talked about the plot to an Amy Tan novel about a woman going to China after a friend's death.
That was my starting point. I would write about a group of guys in a fantasy football league. One of the league members dies suddenly. They decide to "honor" him by following his beloved Lions around for the entire season. The Lions make an incredible run to the Super Bowl and the guy wins the fantasy championship.
In writing this, I can appreciate why the writers of the FX show The League focus on five guys. This is a comedy about a fantasy football league and it focuses on only a part of the league. It's hard to have 12 "main" characters, including the dead guy. My initial idea was to have each chapter be from a different character's point of view. I can't say that every character will get equal time.
I was in a one-day novel-writing class and the guy said that you need to write every day. He dedicates four hours a day. I give myself one. I don't always write for an entire hour. I have written every day in the past two months and I've missed maybe one day in the past 100. They say that the first draft is the easy part.
I'll attempt to post at least once a week and write about whatever strikes my fancy regarding the process.
Current progress: Just finished chapter 10. 163 pages or 66,937 words.
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