I grew up not really grokking literary analysis. It’s just not something that I was able to grasp myself. I was able to handle processing other’s analysis and found myself nodding along, but I never was able to do it myself.

Until now.

Being on the other end of the novel is giving me a new appreciation of what it takes to write a book. I can see what some of the plot devices and character development does in a novel a lot more now.

Ya know, everyone should write a novel or something. It really builds more appreciation for how hard it is to write a cohesive book. It’s helping me be better at reading them too!

I’m 40% through the novel at this point. I still don’t have a title for it though.

I keep getting asked “what’s it about?”

I’ll try to describe it. It falls into the category of genre fiction. The genre in this case is a thriller/mystery.

The characters are pretty normal people living in Salt Lake City, UT. (Not giving anything away. This is in Chapter 2) A mystery phone call on a Sunday night at 2AM gets the ball rolling.

It involves a drug company (pharmaceuticals) that one of the main characters works at. The main character if Francis. He’s a random process engineer working there.

And he’s a blogger.

I’ll leave it at that for now. Maybe after editing I’ll print up a few copies for some folks to read.

BTW: I actually like where this is going. I’m getting excited to see how this is going to end!

I did some work on the cars today. Putting on the winter wheels. I noticed some odd wear on Ennie’s tires. We’re going to have to get new tires for that soon. $$.

Wound up not in a great mood.

Then I escaped to novel writing. It’s a nice escape. I didn’t really expect it as much as reading novels, but sure enough I’m in a better mood.

So far I’ve written more fiction in the past week than I’ve written in the past 20 years. Maybe ever. It gets me out of my head into and into someone else’s. I can explore how things might play out in different scenarios.

Cool stuff I tell ya!

So Francis Derby finally met Laily Young at the restaurant after some calls. What’ll happen next?

So far I’m 6197 words in. 12% done. What I’m finding is that I’m constantly trying to put in hooks while I’m writing for things to do and more things to write. In some ways it sounds like cheating, but I know it’s not. The real thing I’m running into — and this is both good and bad — is that I don’t know what the characters are going to do. I just have to give them the room to play.

One thing that’s really working well is Scrivener. It’s a long document authoring package. I have some future scenes planned out and written — and it’s let me write those when I have the inspiration. Out of order can be a good thing. I don’t want to force things at the wrong time; I don’t want to block myself.

Writing this novel is fun! I still don’t have a name for it, but it’s cool watching what the characters are doing!

I found out that my main protagonist has a cat named Penelope! Cool!

People are asking if I know what the novel’s about. Yes, I do — in very broad terms. I know some plot hooks. I know some of the characters. I know some of the settings — even the ones I’ve not written yet. But I don’t know how it’s going to end.

I have some ideas of how it might end.

I’ll have to wait until the characters get there though!

It’s neat being in suspense of how your own novel ends.