Writing a novel

So, this isn't the first time I've been here. Well, not here, exactly, but here, at this space in a novel. I'm about two hundred and twenty pages into the the thing, and I'm beginning to get scared. Will anybody want to read the thing? How long will it just lurk on my hard drive before I fool somebody into buying it?

Does it suck?

I think I'm probably not alone in wondering all these things. Novel writing is scary. I love to work on short stories. I love the limits they give. I love the feeling of being able to control all the sentences, sort of watch all the corners of the room at once, you know? Novels are nothing like that. they're like losing control of the horses and riding straight for the cliff. I swore I'd never do it again after the first one.

But my mind was still set on wide story when I started this one. Too much story for twenty pages. The characters seem to have too much life for that.

I thought I had some idea of how to do it, having made every mistake imaginable on the first one. But this is different. Maybe they're all different. I don't know. So maybe this blog is a way to keep me focused. What did I work on today? How many words, how many chapters. There's a lot of math in novels, I've discovered. I've tried this blog thing before. We'll see how far I get this time..

mart