Introduction by Daniel Routh

Hi friends and readers of all shapes! 

My name is Daniel.  I’ve always wanted to be a writer. So I was easily goaded along by some friends (?) and my own desires to run the marathon of Nanowrimo and try writing a novel this month.  Yikes.  This is my first attempt at a novel.  I’m calling it DRAGONS AND STARS, and I’m aiming it towards Christian/Young Adult, but I hope it’s a fair enough story that anyone would enjoy reading it.

The main protagonists are two friends: a Reformed Protestant boy named Neal, and a practicing Jew named Hanna.    They are growing up on an asteroid in the asteroid belt, part of a colorful mining community.  In the story they will face danger from pirates and witness events that are hard to explain–and hard to fit into their preconceived ideas.

I appreciate what the non-profit organization sponsoring this challenge says to us writers:

“1) It’s okay to not know what you’re doing. Really. You’ve read a lot of novels, so you’re completely up to the challenge of writing one. If you feel more comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do so. But it’s also fine to just wing it. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you’re not sure what that story might be right now.

“2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even if it’s hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn’t. Every book you’ve ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.”

 A special thanks to you, Jon, for  your encouragement and for offering your blog to post on.

And to the rest of you, thanks for reading, and you’re welcome to join me as I struggle to drop perfectionism and just produce the first draft of a book.

Daniel