Fair warning: The 3 Day Novel contest is upon us, namely September 3-5. My Arts Editor & I participated several years ago, and while we didn’t make the short list, we had both fun and some pain as we spent three days madly writing, rewriting, and (at least the AE) cursing the computer that ate a sex scene revision.
It’s an interesting experience because the rough ideas with which you plunge into the contest begin to refine, mutate, explode, reassemble – and generate people. Oh, sure, they’re characters in your story, but if you’re doing this right their voices start to echo in your head, asking you why you’re forcing decisions upon them with which they disagree, even haring off on adventures which you never planned.
We do not plan to enter this year, we’ve been too busy to plan anything. Not that plans are all that necessary, but we (or at least I) don’t feel ready to devote three days to just writing.
Although put that way, it’s a bit tempting.
