I’ve been a member of the NaNoWriMo for more than three years, that’s what the website told me when I logged in by chance today. I never created a novel there coz I knew I couldn’t muster the requisite discipline to sit straight for 30 days and produce 50,000 words. I never felt the stories any problem for me, I thought I could conjure them up and I had enough material to write the words needed, but never dared to take the plunge. The reasons vary; maybe I didn’t want to dilute the story by hastening it through in a month, or I was afraid that it would end up being one of the things that was beautiful in thought and shallow in execution. Whatever might be the reason, I resister NaNoWriMo for 3 years but as it turns out, I could do it only so long.

I don’t know if I would be able to take the challenge through and finish the novel, in fact I’m about 99% certain that I wouldn’t, but I’m not getting any younger and I thought it better to let the novel out and see how it ends up, instead of dreaming up the popularity and literary merit of the imaginary unwritten one. So, I created the novel and the first thing they ask me while creating is to choose its genre, and Drama is not in the list to choose from, may be they read the same book I did where the author says all stories are Drama in their basic form. I choose Romance, though I can hardly call my idea a romantic one. It is closer to being a Romance than YA Literature or Adventure, but I’d not myself get carried away too much by its genre at this point.

The next one is the title. I always had difficulties in titling my posts on the blog, and it became even more difficult with the novel. I was afraid I could take up the entire month of November for choosing an apt title, so after thinking long and hard about the kind of people I want to write about, I decided to title it Shallow. It is an apt title, and I was about to create the novel with the title until a better one came. The protagonists in my idea (novel) are three different characters but the striking contrast that everyone can make out while reading it is their age. So, Age seemed a better title than Shallow, and I like it better. It is short, has certain gravitas to it when seen on the cover of a book, and age shows on my characters and reflects in their actions. 

With those two out of the way, I created the novel. I’m not expecting any great things to happen. I’m not even looking forward to it. I know that I can abandon it by 2nd November that is if I can sit and write on 1st November. Like all my previous efforts, abandoned midway and completed, this is another to inculcate discipline in me and just sit and write. I wish I could just do that. If I can sit and write for 30 hours in a month, I’d consider myself successful even if I don’t finish the book or the word count. 

You can find me here, though I wouldn’t know what you would (should) do afterwards.