Published Dec 1, 2010
For some reason, I thought it would be a clever idea to write a novel this November. I’d been thinking about it for years, actually, since a very good friend participated in 2000. I was jealous of her accomplishment; but somehow I managed to put it off every year. Busy and all that, you know.At the same time, I’d begun to think of writing a novel. I guess I’d been lucky enough to read a few really bad ones and thought “hey, I can write that poorly too!” I even took a very halting shot at a sci-fi novel before deciding that wasn’t really the genre for me.But mystery? Ahh, that was a good candidate. I read mysteries for fun; I can even read them when I’m stressed out, a time when I find literature just too much for me. Mysteries are a big market — market size is important when you’re an MBA — and seem to be made into movies at a higher rate than other genres — profitability is also important!And then this November came up surprisingly empty. So I decided to do it. And, look at that, I finished! It was rough going for a bit, and I really relied on my ability to turn out mass numbers of words of uncertain quality (ed. note — nobody’s uncertain about it) to get the job done. Fifty thousand one hundred and thirty-eight words later, somehow it really did get done!