My NaNoWriMo novel: The deadline is now for real

[mbranesf]

I should have suspected that I would have difficulty moving along at the optimum clip on my National Novel Writing Month project if I kept working under a fake deadline with no real consequences to failure other than having to admit failure. I need real deadlines. I get M-Brane published on time--actually early most months--because it's on a real schedule. People expect me to do it. I'd look a loser if I was late with an issue. So, yeah, if I failed at NaNo, I wouldn't feel great about it, but there would be no repercussions. I could just scratch it off the list of Things to Do and not worry about it anymore. 

Yesterday I felt a bit of spontaneous momentum on NaNoWriMo and got a lot of word count added to my book. Today, I have upped the ante. I started a fund drive that is tied into my completion of it. Details at this page. I have started promising people a finished project that I will need to actually have ready for presentation in a few weeks. Like the zine, people are now expecting it. This does not increase the stress on me, oddly enough. It actually reduces it because I see a real date-certain for the project's end, and all the steps that need to happen between now and then. 

While I am not promising that my NaNo novel is going to be incredibly good as a piece of literature, I am committing to the following: The story will be complete, meaning that it has a beginning, a middle and an end (no "to be continued" at the end of 50000 words); it will be written as well as I can manage in the time allotted; it will be formatted in the manner of real book, with nicely designed pages and cover art (though all in electronic form); it will contain annotations in which I will comment on various aspects of the story; it will contain illustrations which may add to the reader's pleasure or amusement.

So throw in on my fund drive and turn up the pressure on me even further!  I need it.

Comments

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

What's the story about? I'll donate some cover art to the cause if you're interested.

[mbranesf.livejournal.com]

Here's the synopsis as it appears on my NaNo page:

When his partner of a decade dies of an illness, Matteo is left with a homelife in ruins, a stepson that he does not understand, and the remnants of his partner’s online career that seem to persist after his death. One day, a mysterious dust storm descends, and Matteo sees in its winds a strange new future. At the same time, his stepson Arthur-Rimbaud finds new direction in a piece of his late father’s work, an odd journal titled “My Life With the Diane Rehm Show.”

It seems to be shaping up as a "literary" story (in the sense of it being focused fairly narrowly on the lives of some present-day people and their very personal problems, in the mode of most modern non-genre fiction) but also one with a real spec fic element to it in that this weird dust storm ends up being a major thing that connects the main characters little lives to something that is affecting the whole world. I took inspiration from the weird dust storm that happened in Australia a few weeks ago and all of those bizarre photos that came from Sydney.