Cat's Musings

Writing Month!

I was in graduate school (the first time — the fun time) when I first discovered National Novel Writing Month. I had a few failed attempts at novels throughout my high school years and during my undergraduate years. Maybe a challenge would give me the momentum I needed?

I had discovered Google tools were better for my lifestyle than Word, so I could type from home, from graduate student office, or from the computer labs on campus before my evening graduate classes. I was nearly even late once, and my professor questioned me about my novella in front of the class. Looking back at when I was doing that in November 2012, it's almost romantic how consumed I was in my passion project.

I finished November 30th with around 53k words. I took a few days and finished up the narrative for Smoke and Steam around mid-December with just over 60k words. It followed Heron Marlowe, an engineer in the fantasy steampunk city of Ironwall, investigating the murder of his best friend.

I was so proud of it, I commissioned a cover to help me celebrate. It's the first piece of art I ever commissioned.

The novella was hot garbage, but I grew so much during that month.

Three years later, I was working a bunch of pick up teaching gigs. I decided to write a novel again that month.

The Ballad of Jeff O'Brien reached its 50k goal, but I never went back and finished the actual narrative. Jeff O'Brien was a vice detective investigating a new drug on the streets of Boston, Massachusetts, that was quickly piling bodies up on the streets, and had him in divorce proceedings with his wife, fellow detective Maria. When I stopped writing, Maria and Jeff had reconciled and were preparing for a gun fight against the might of the Boston PD in an old church.

I was going through a phase, okay? Berlin Noir, LA Noire, The Black Dahlia, and Max Payne were my world back in the early-mid 2000s.

I've had a few failed starts and stops since then. And apparently, NaNoWriMo betrayed the community.

But I feel like writing. I want to write. And I feel like blogging again is really priming the pump. I found Writing Month. I've set up my word count and goal. 50k in 30 days to write Deep in the Heart of Texas (working title), a novella about two teachers who fall in love. Part romance, part rant on education policy, and hopefully all hella fun to write.

Hope you'll follow my progress.

1826/50000

#WritingMonth2025 #writing