NOVEL: MAY IT MOVE BEYOND META

Thanks to editor Mark Young for having my 2016 year-long diary about writing a novel, complete with "Midnight Selfies" such as the one above (I wrote at night), appear in the new issue of OTOLITHS!  You can go to it HERE, but I'll reprint my Introduction:

Before I became a full-time writer, I worked as a banker. During my last year as a banker, I would return home from the office every evening and work on my “Great American Novel.” Indeed, I opted to resign from banking when I put “The End” at the bottom of that manuscript. Unfortunately, a few months into being a full-time writer, I came to realize that that manuscript, to put it bluntly, sucked. It was, by the way, a murder mystery set in a bank—Reader, let’s pause and feel the banality together. 

Pagkatapos, for the next 20 years, I attempted and failed several times to write a long-form novel. Still, in December 2015, I decided that I would make one last attempt. I determined to do so by writing on the novel everyday during the year 2016. I ordered myself the constraint: the writing could be one sentence or 10,000 words but I had to write everyday. I am delighted to announce that, for the first time as a writer, I did succeed in writing a long form novel that, unlike my first effort, actually works! It bears the working title, The 1,146^th Fairy Tale.  

As this was a prolonged attempt at novel-writing, I also decided on the 76th day of hewing to my daily writing schedule that I would make my process public by occasionally noting updates on Facebook. My idea was that going public would fortify me not to give up as doing so would be a public humiliation—I believe that strategy worked several times as the year unfolded, especially on the days that I felt the writing wasn’t working well. 

The following presents my Facebook notes of my novel-writing process, usually illustrated with a selfie. Selfies on their own don’t interest me, but my first occurred after a long, exhausting process after midnight—I usually wrote at night. Looking at my drawn face, I became interested in exploring the Midnight Selfie or Midnight’s Selfie. Lastly, as one can observe, humor became important in helping me maintain the necessary discipline to finish the novel. Please join me in my journey to the very last post on December 31, 2016. 

It is too early to present any excerpt from the novel. But I will share after my last post one of the “studies” I sketched out during the writing process as I explored what story would be told by the novel. That study is entitled, “EVER AFTER.”

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My novel-writing diary appears with works by fabulous wordsmiths: Sheila E. Murphy, Steve Dalachinsky, Andrew Topel, Brandon Nakasato, Cecelia Chapman, David Lohrey, C. R. E. Wells, Norman M. Gendelman, Texas Fontanella, Philip Byron Oakes, Caitlin Rose Doyle, Keith Walker, John Xero, David Dick, Kyle Hemmings, Mary Claire Garcia, Jesse Glass, Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Philip Elliott, Sanjeev Sethi, sean burn, Kirk Robinson & Garin Cycholl & William Allegrezza, Bill Wolak, Pete Spence, Jim Leftwich, John M. Bennett, Thomas M. Cassidy, osvaldo cibils, Kelly J. Powell, harry k stammer, Raymond Farr, John Amen, Lucianna Chixaro Ramos, a.j. carruthers, Olivier Schopfer, Joel Chace, Carol Stetser, Les Wicks, Volodymyr Bilyk, Lana Bella, Diana Magallón, Clara B. Jones, Laurent Grison & Yvon Guillou, Meeah Williams, Michael Berton, Michael Farrell, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Charles Borkhuis & John McCluskey, Lakey Comess, John Martone, Evan Gray, Willie Smith, Allen Forrest, M. Leland Oroquieta, hiromi suzuki, Jack Galmitz, Mason Keys, Joe Balaz, Luisa-Evelina Stifii, Howie Good, Matina L. Stamatakis, George Moore, Drew B. David, Adam Levon Brown, Márton Koppány, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Carlyle Baker, J. Crouse, Richard Kostelanetz, Heath Brougher, Anwer Ghani, J. Ray Paradiso, AG Davis, Joanna Thomas, Kasy Long, Heller Levenson, Tom Snarsky, Dawn Nelson Wardrope, cathy aragon, Jeff Harrison, Marco Giovenale, John W. Sexton, Eugenia Hepworth Petty, bruno neiva, Stu Hatton, Ian Gibbins, dan raphael, Alberto Vitacchio, Douglas Penick,  Nika & Jim McKinniss, Alan Summers, Jeff Bagato, Mariapia Fanna Roncoroni, Michael O'Brien, M.J. Iuppa, Carla Bertola, Andrew Galan, Katrinka Moore, Thom Sullivan, Joseph Veronneau, Marcia Arrieta, Sean Negus, Shloka Shankar, Seth Howard, Paul T. Lambert, John Pursch, Ella Skilbeck-Porter, Linda M. Walker, Tony Beyer, Edward Kulemin, PT Davidson, Michael Brandonisio, Adam Fieled, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Angad Arora, Bob Heman, Carol Ciavonne, Sheila Windsor & Brendan Slater, Stephen J. Williams, Marilyn Stablein, Felino A. Soriano, Louie Crew Clay, Peter Bakowski, David Heg & Nicolette Wong, Francesca Jurate Sasnaitis, J. D. Nelson, & Marilyn R. Rosenberg & Ann R. Shapiro. 

See entire issue of Otoliths by going HERE!