A few weeks ago, I signed up for Lara Zielin’s Author Your Life summit, where I encountered Rachael Herron again. A friend of mine recommended her books ages ago, and I read many of them and enjoyed them. But I hadn’t really followed her in any meaningful way.

The whole summit was interesting (okay, most of it), but I was especially intrigued by Herron’s argument that you should try to write the first draft of a book in 90 days. She argues that it’s long enough to actually accomplish something (unlike NaNoWriMo for many people) but not so long that you’re a different person when you finish. It’s just long enough.

I’ve been wanting to try writing a novel, so I decided to set the clock for 90 days and dive in. The first two weeks, she says, are for plotting and planning, and I did that with the help of Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering. There are still loads of holes in my plot, and I’ll be working on patching those up, but today is the day I’m supposed to embark on the actual writing, and so embarking I am.

(I’m even resisting redesigning this site as a way to put off writing a little longer. Isn’t the brain interesting?)

So wish me luck, friends. 1400 words and I have a date.