This year's project for National Novel Writing Month did not - and I know no one is shocked by this - get sewn up within the wee month of November, the last half of which was spent driving up to Dana Farber and back.
Besides, for the first half of that time I preferred landscape painting while the days were still fine.
When radiation treatments ended, I finally went back to writing, and started to try feeling around for what I really cared about in the project.
The novel became the story of an adolescent who learns she has the breast cancer gene. At 16, what would you have done? How would it have changed your life, if at all?
Not a small question. And tangle that up with a few French fairies (cause I can't resist) the Norman countryside, some fellow confused adolescents, and you have -
A 50k mess. But 50k! Yay! It was a goal, significant or not, and it has been crossed today.
Now I just have to write another 80k so I can throw away 60...
Besides, for the first half of that time I preferred landscape painting while the days were still fine.
When radiation treatments ended, I finally went back to writing, and started to try feeling around for what I really cared about in the project.
The novel became the story of an adolescent who learns she has the breast cancer gene. At 16, what would you have done? How would it have changed your life, if at all?
Not a small question. And tangle that up with a few French fairies (cause I can't resist) the Norman countryside, some fellow confused adolescents, and you have -
A 50k mess. But 50k! Yay! It was a goal, significant or not, and it has been crossed today.
Now I just have to write another 80k so I can throw away 60...