Final Update on book

First see about my efforts to write a novel here and here.

The month of November seemed to pass by in a blur. A lot happened in the month, but the one thing that did not happen was me finishing my book. Sadly, I only finished a 1/5th of the book. I'm sadly disappointed, but I've learned a few things.

• An idea is not enough. You need to prepare for more than a few minutes to plan things out all the way through.
• Reading is a lot like programming, in the respect that in both crafts, you must keep many things in your head simultaneously to ensure that all angles are accounted for.
• Along the same lines, distractions can kill your train of thought. My wife spent many evenings upstairs with me watching TV while I wrote. Unfortunately, I can't just turn out the TV and during an hour with the TV on, I often found myself writing just a few words or sentences. Far short of where I needed to be.
• The stories in my head and my style of writing fit better as short stories.

While I don't know if I'll ever have a professional career as a writer, I think some of these lessons can be applied to other efforts elsewhere. For instance, I've instituted (much to my wife's chagrin) a no TV rule upstairs for 1 hour after my son goes to bed. This quiet time I will utilize for other projects I plan to work on in the next year.

I can also learn from my mistakes with the preparation of the story. Going into the month, I felt like if I spent time planning out the plot of the story, I would be cheating. But, I needed direction and a plan for where the story was to go. I eventually did write an outline for the story, but this took more precious time away from me, time that I could have used.

I will continue to work on my story. My goal is to have it finished sometime next year before next November. Then, if I attempt another novel next November, I can learn from my mistakes.

And perhaps next time, I'll pursue a group of short stories instead.