NaNoWriMo Winds Down

I won’t be “winning” NaNoWriMo this year, but this was a great exercise in getting one’s word count advancing. Currently at near 26, 000 words, I’ll be pleased to hit 27,000 words by tomorrow night’s deadline and with any luck, at the same rate, I’ll have the first draft finished by the end of the year.

That brings me to ScriptFrenzy, the other writing month sponsored by the same group of folks who do NaNo. I already have several screenplay ideas, so all I need to do is pick one, plot it out and get ready for that extravaganza.

To all the competitors this year, especially to those who made the 50,000 word minimum, I say congratulations. If any of those instant novels become bestsellers, I think the whole NaNo community will be pleased.

Best,

Michael

A Year Later

Greetings, friends ...

I'm glad to be able to return to this blog after over a year of inactivity. In case you weren't aware, I had gone a couple of rounds with a disease called dermatomyositis, an autoimmune disease in which the white blood cells attack the muscle cells as though they are foreign invaders. It's similar to many AI diseases ... for example, MS is an AI disease where the immune system attacks the central nervous system.

The upshot of the story is I ended up in the hospital for all of November and the early part of December in 2007. I was better by early January 2008, then ended up relapsing in February and didn't recover 100% until early June. Thanks to good medication, a great rheumatologist and the world's greatest wife, I am here and writing again. All of this is chronicled in a book I'll be publishing in early 2009 called The Year I Lost November. Profits from that book will be donated to The Myositis Association.

Because of my disease, I couldn't publish my first anthology of short stories and poetry until July 2008, called In The Foothills. The collection covers material I've written between 2005 and 2007. If you like short stories, I invite you to take a test run.

Besides editing the new book, I've been particular busy with NaNoWriMo this year. Unfortunately, because of my illness in 2007, I couldn't participate in the novel-writing fall classic. This year, I'm definitely in the hunt. As of this post, I have over 12,000 words written in my own someday bestseller (entitled Lens Flare), an action-packed thriller of arson and political intrigue.

That's all for now, folks. I hope your respective Muses are kind to you this week.

Best,
Michael