Illuminations

I finished reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables a couple of days ago. It took about two months to get through, due to pacing and the sheer size of it, coupled with a relatively busy summer and a short attention span. I'd picked it up because I was interested in the musical, which I have on CD, and wanted to get to know the story better. In places, it was pretty good to mediocre, and in a few passages it was almost painful to get through, but for about 250 pages I was riveted. That 250 pages sold me on the entirety of the book, solidified it in my head as perhaps the best piece of fiction ever written, and gave me a brilliant, beautiful flash of complete inspiration.

Have you ever been sitting there when you felt it, a nearly-solid feeling of something dropping into your mind, like the last piece of a puzzle, the final cog of an intricate clockwork? You feel something hit your mind, solid, and completely formed, and you draw into yourself, examining your thoughts for hours, when you realize that everything suddenly makes sense, that you know things you were unaware of ever having learned, that your problem has been solved without conscious effort?

Writers, professional authors, have the tendency to discount inspiration as hogwash, but I know for a fact--from experience--that it exists. It's not something you can count on, perhaps, but anything it provides is always whole, and pure, and beautiful. Les Miserables gave me that level of enlightenment.

I'm torn now between writing out all of the details of my inspiration in favor of planning, or letting them simmer in my head to continue connecting and breeding. I think I lean toward the latter, but it means I'll have to make a point of writing every day. Yes, I say that often, but this time it's true. I'm going to give myself a deadline, post it on my forehead if I have to, and I'm GOING to finish it by that deadline, whatever it takes. Let's see....

I expect the novel to be roughly 30 chapters; each chapter, on average, has been about 5,000 words. Roughly a 150,000 word piece then, decent length for the genre....anyway. I can generally average 2,500 a day if I try, so that's 60 days. Two months.

Now, to be realistic, I really can't finish it in two months, because school and other things will pop up....so I'll give myself a 30-day leeway. This book will be finished in 3 months.

My Deadline:
October 20th, 2005.

That will have been 3 years, almost to the day, of work since this was first conceived. The book will be written and edited and publishable by Christmas. This is my goal.

This starts in the morning. I'm allotting myself a portion of the day during the summer when things are slow--around 3:00pm or so--to sit offline and write 2,500 words, or more if I get the inspiration. I'll have to change my schedule and make it more rigid once school starts. We shall see.

Hmm...maybe I'll alternate days. Some days will be internet days, some days will be writing days. Every other day? yeah, I like that idea better actually. Tomorrow will be a no-internet day; the next day will be a no-writing day, unless I'm so disposed.

At any rate. The book will be in the hands of a publishing house by Christmas. Mark my words.