Yup, after five years or so of cogitating on writing a book, I finally did it - - thanks to the extreme deadline sport of the 3 Day Novel Contest.


3 Day Novel Contest

Here's the drill - - the contest takes place each Labor Day Weekend, starting at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday and ending at 11:59 p.m. on Monday. During those 72 hours, you write a book. You can come prepared with an outline, but the entirety of the novel has to be written during those three days. It's pretty much all honor system, but the panel of judges has its ways of sussing out the three-year-novel-that-was-cut-and-pasted-over-Labor-Day-Weekend works of fiction.

Grand prize? Getting published.

Here's why I did it - - for about five years, I've had what I thought was a good story rolling around in my noggin. For five years, I've done precious little with it except for some research and an outline and an abortive first chapter that I didn't like because it didn't entertain me. What I know about myself is that I need a deadline in order to do something like this - - not a self-imposed deadline, but an other-imposed deadline. And that's what the 3 Day Novel Contest provided.

And here's how it played out:

Day One - - I got a leisurely start at about 12:30 p.m. on Saturday; it was already 12 hours into the contest, but I was.....overconfident? Blase'? Smug? Nah, I think it was mainly a case of the story being ready to be born full-growed (yes, I'm an author) from my gray matter. No outline. Little to no research done. I'm an idjit.

At the end of the first day, I had about 28 pages written and the story had been flowing well. Research on the geographic areas involved and on the quotes that I misused at the start of each chapter was taking quite a bit longer than anticipated, but I wasn't too worried with 48 hours to go. Went home and slept.

Day Two - - Second Day Second Thoughts. Got started at 9:30 a.m. and wrote about 30 more pages, but it was a slog. As I drove home that night at about 8:30 p.m., I was convinced that the thing was utter crap and that I couldn't possibly allow anyone else to ever, ever read it. It just didn't seem possible to even get close to book length, either - - although I wasn't tempted to quit, it was a bit discouraging to have entered the contest and then produced nothing but rotten derivative tripe. Went home and slept badly.

Day Three - - got in at about 9:45 a.m. and the writing was easy, natural. Cranked out 32 more pages by 8 p.m. and then did a major read-through to catch errors and inconsistencies, as well as take a look at how the story moved. I was unquestionably punchy by that time, but the story made me laugh (in the right places) and I found myself leaning forward and wondering what was going to happen next (hey, bonehead, you WROTE the thing!). The story had come out of my head just the way I'd imagined and I felt extremely satisfied. By 11 p.m., it was done and I was giddy - - singing, laughing, shouting, dancing with relief.

A couple of days later, the manuscript was mailed in to the contest organizers; we'll all hear back with the final decisions in January 2008 and I'm actually kinda hopeful. I'm not sure I'll ever do this again, but the experience taught me a lot - - that I can write fiction after all, that dialogue isn't the big scary beastie I'd been imagining, that the idea was really a book and not just a short story, that living on Chex mix and Coke and M&Ms for three days makes me feel queasy for a week.

For anyone else who is a procrastinator like me, this is a great way to get that book started - - win or lose, I have the skeleton of a crazy cannibal book that just needs some fleshing out to be ready for publication. Queasy or no, tired or no, this was totally worth it.......