NaNoWriMo: I'm in! Kinda. Sorta.

As I write this, National Novel Writing Month — known by adherents as NaNoWriMo — is sixty-four minutes old. Hundreds of thousands of would-be, never-will-be and most-definitely-are novelists are taking to their keyboards and trying to pound out a minimum of 50,000 words over the next thirty days.

I already have the only NaNoWriMo badge of courage I need: I wrote the entirety of 600 Hours of Edward in November 2008 — nearly 80,000 words — and watched as that mania-fueled manuscript changed my life. I have no desire, and probably no ability, to relive that experience. And yet, the idea of setting aside thirty days to write with abandon, to dump the contents of the mind onto the table and see what possibilities are there, has a great deal of appeal. So I'm using NaNoWriMo 2011 in an unofficial way to jump-start a novel project I've been contemplating for weeks now. I started it several weeks ago, then set it aside for more brain seasoning. I think — think — it's ready to go back in the cooker now, and I'll be using my blog here as a way to keep myself accountable over the next month.

So, for those keeping tabs at home, here's the scoreboard on a story I'm tentatively calling Rayfield:

Date: November 1
Number of words at the start of writing today: 2,668
Number of words at the conclusion of writing today: 3,738
Words written today: 1,070
Words written in November: 1,070
Chapters completed: 1

 *****

At long last, I have final copies of my new short-story collection, Quantum Physics and the Art of Departure, in hand. They're sporting a couple of nice cover blurbs: one on the front from Craig Johnson, the bestselling author the Walt Longmire series of novels, and one on the back from one of my favorite people, Megan Ault Regnerus, the managing editor of Montana Quarterly, where a couple of these stories have been or will be published.

Here's what these good folks have to say:

"Have you ever felt in your pocket and found a twenty you didn't know you had; how 'bout a hundred dollar bill, or a Montecristo cigar or a twenty-four-karat diamond? That's what reading Craig Lancaster's Quantum Physics and the Art of Departure is like — close and discovered treasures." — Craig Johnson, author of The Cold Dish and Hell Is Empty

"Craig Lancaster understands the human condition, all of it. The funny, the absurd and the fault-ridden awesomeness that is each and every one of us — or at least someone we know." — Megan Ault Regnerus

The book will be in Montana bookstores soon, and if you're a Kindle or Nook person, it's available now for just $3.99.

Thanks for reading.