I've decided to temporarily shelve Wildworld and give the new book a try. I need the breath-of-fresh-air that I hope Dottie Notkin can provide. (What a little scamp she is!) And I'm gonna go with the "experiment" deal again, inviting friends to read along as the chapters are knocked out--at a much brisker pace than those last ones were arriving, for god's sake! (Famous last words?) Actually, I'm going to see if I can't write the entire book in three months, finishing the first draft by the end of June, 2010. Is that possible? Sure. Likely? Umm...
At any rate, it'll be a short book. I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 typewritten pages. Simple story structure. Precious little prosaic description. Lots of dialogue. I expect to have to do some research for the political stuff, but I'll be just as happy making most of that up. Hell, the thing barely has to even make sense! It's just supposed to be fun, fun, fun.
And not just for me. I want it to be fun for those who undertake the experiment as well, more interactive--and to that purpose I've gone ahead and set-up an email account for Dottie and signed her up on Facebook as well. The readers will be able to direct their comments not only to the author but to the character herself - and maybe even get personal responses back from her. (Looking over Dottie's FB profile and seeing that she and my friend Wendy are now "friends"... Man, that's just funny as hell to me. I love the idea of befriending fictional characters!)
And now it's time to get started.
Chapter One, first paragraph: "The dog and cat were at it again. The dog had fresh red scratches on its wet black nose. The cat had a new set of teeth-marks on its furry little butt. They chased round and round the small fenced-in yard, barking and hissing and yelping and yowling. What a racket!"
I'm excited.
At any rate, it'll be a short book. I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 typewritten pages. Simple story structure. Precious little prosaic description. Lots of dialogue. I expect to have to do some research for the political stuff, but I'll be just as happy making most of that up. Hell, the thing barely has to even make sense! It's just supposed to be fun, fun, fun.
And not just for me. I want it to be fun for those who undertake the experiment as well, more interactive--and to that purpose I've gone ahead and set-up an email account for Dottie and signed her up on Facebook as well. The readers will be able to direct their comments not only to the author but to the character herself - and maybe even get personal responses back from her. (Looking over Dottie's FB profile and seeing that she and my friend Wendy are now "friends"... Man, that's just funny as hell to me. I love the idea of befriending fictional characters!)
And now it's time to get started.
Chapter One, first paragraph: "The dog and cat were at it again. The dog had fresh red scratches on its wet black nose. The cat had a new set of teeth-marks on its furry little butt. They chased round and round the small fenced-in yard, barking and hissing and yelping and yowling. What a racket!"
I'm excited.