NaNoWriMo 2010

It's been weeks and weeks since I sat down to write anything for Sunder, mostly due to overtime at the office and various non-work-related intrusions.  The biggest of those being the shoulder injury I suffered.  It's only in the last few days that the ligaments in my shoulder have felt strong enough that I could sit and type at my home computer for any length of time without aching.  Even though I've been thinking about my writing projects and talking them through with my writing partner KM, in all this time I haven't had a proper outlet and I've felt my creative self drying up into a little brown raisin.

On the way home tonight I realized that the month of November is also NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.  Even though I'm behind by a whole week, I thought I might give the contest a shot anyway as an exercise to try and blow out the dust and the cobwebs in my brain before I go back to putting in serious work on Sunder.  It's a lot less gruelling than the 3 Day Novel Contest so I can pace myself while I get back into writing shape.

I don't have a title for my novel yet, but I know that it's going to be an attempt at an espionage novel.  When I say "attempt", that is exactly what I mean.  I have no clue what I'm doing in that genre and I'm sure that no self-respecting agent or publisher will want to touch this project, but John Buchan and Robert Ludlum will look down on my earnest endeavour and smile with all the benevolence of mentors.

So far tonight I've managed to plot out the first third of the novel.  It involves a young woman named Isabell Griffin who is asked by her elderly neighbour, Edward Nolan, to hold onto a locked strongbox for him while he visits his brother.  Three days later, Mr. Nolan's body is discovered in a rail yard, badly beaten and shot in the head.  News reports identify Mr. Nolan as the disgraced, former deputy director of the NSA and the police and the FBI plead for the public's help with any information they may have about Mr. Nolan. 

Almost immediately, a man calling himself Daniel Broussard arrives at Isabell's condo claiming to be Nolan's nephew.  He asks for the strongbox, indicating that Nolan had willed it to him, but Isabell refuses to turn it over to him.  Instead she contacts the FBI, but just as they are taking her to a field station for an interview Broussard runs them off the road.  A gun fight ensues and Broussard kills one of the agents.  Broussard himself is wounded, but manages to escape with Isabell.

I have to end here because I have a very early date with my physio therapist tomorrow morning and I don't want to risk oversleeping.  Suffice to say, though, I feel like I accomplished something tonight--much more than I have in the last two or three months. 

Back to work tomorrow!