> I went to Borders to see whether they had that book in stock, but they didn't. Is there any chance you'd loan it to me for a couple of days? Also, are you letting people read the novel you got partway through last year, or is it so horrible that you can't bear the thought? :-)
>

First things first: I couldn't find the book at Borders either, but I've seen it at several Barnes & Noble stores. So you might want to look there. However, sure, I'd be glad to loan my copy out.

Second: I'm not letting people read the novel... yet. I'd like to finish it first. Part of the reason I couldn't complete it in time, really, was that I had chosen something so incredibly complex that it wasn't easy to write. There were about 50 characters of varying importance levels (I counted once). It was hard keeping track, even with charts of who was who. I would like to finish it, though, and then probably make it available to Rinkies to read at least; it was inspired during a chat conversation, so I figure I owe it to you all. :-)

Oh, and it's a parody fantasy which takes all the cliches/stereotypes that I could think of for characters and throws them into an almost-cliche plot. It's probably horrible, but it is fun to write.

> I don't think there's any way I'll truly end up writing 50K words in a month, at any rate. I'm far too much of a perfectionist. I write and rewrite almost every word two or three times even when posting on a message board; how on earth am I going to keep myself from doing that while working on a novel??
>

Conquering the perfectionism is a good bit of the event itself, I've found. I've got a stack of perfectly-written one-page stories that never went anywhere after the brilliant opening, because editing it over and over wore me out. Trying to work toward a crazy deadline means a lot more time spent just writing random garbage, and less time spent carefully crafting each word. And you know what? Stories actually turn out better as a result. Somewhere between last November and this, I discovered that seeing a story take shape, even if it's not perfect, is one of the coolest things ever. The minute I found myself just writing, instead of creating a work of literature to be read by future generations, I discovered that the story was getting interesting. It was developing a plot, and the characters were getting personalities... it was awesome. That's a major reason why I think any would-be writers (of any sort) should try this at least once.

ALSO. You don't have to show the story to anyone. It takes a lot of the pressure off if you're just writing for the fun of it, for yourself. It takes courage to allow imperfection, still, but it's not as hard as it would be if there were an audience...

*steps off soapbox*

> Iss "say hi to Bro for me" achar

Se "when they're both around, I will" lah