Greetings! This is a journal of my efforts and my life during National Novel Writer's Month. Yay. One month, 30 days (why did they pick such a short month?), 50,000 words (which, I hear, isn’t even that long a novel).

Day one.

1400 word.

So far so good.

Once upon a time, my auntie Jean gave me "Arrows of the Queen" by Mercedes Lackey for my 13th birthday. I devoured that book, and the others in the Valdemar series. I didn't like all of them (and actually now, I’m not very interested in rereading them!) but they all held my attention in one way or another, and in such a fashion that I longed to write a story (or trilogy) of my own. At that time, I started forming scenes in my mind, and by age 17, I had started laying down characters and stories and trying to tie it all together.

My plot is a tenuous thread made of old, fragile material that stretches and twists and tangles in the wind. It has snapped a few times, and I have worked to knit it back together or tie it to other threads branching out in many different directions. It is my hope that, by the end of this month, it shall be a hearty rope, binding my ideas in one cohesive story.

A worthy and noble thing to work for. We’ll see if I can do it…