Novel Progress and Final Track on Novel Soundtrack

Sent off first 60 pages of "Australia" to K, my “comma Nazi” [and I say that with great love and affection]. I am going to go to a writing retreat to knock out the rest of the novel this weekend. At least, that is the plan. I’ve got bits and pieces of it written here and there and everywhere…I think if I can just pull it all together, I can pull it off…

… and btw, in the interest of Internet safety, YES I DO have someone house-sitting for me while I am away. :)

Let me reiterate that this is not typically the way I write a novel. Sometimes, however, having a deadline [in my case, a contest] can be the perfect kick in the pants to get it done. After all, that’s why I created the “year of writing dangerously” – a year with no extracurricular activities—a year to focus on my writing because, well, I’m definitely not getting younger...well, that, and, like so many other Americans, I seem to have an addiction to trying to do too much.

The page count is at 60 ---I'll check back in on Monday, send another group of pages to K and we'll go from there. It has just hit me that if I make this deadline, I will have written A NOVEL thus far in 2010. Granted, I had been working on it off and on for a while, and it was the brainchild of a National Novel Writing Month project, but still, to finally get everything together...Whew!

For some reason, a hymn that has been featured briefly thus far in my novel is starting to play an even bigger part in it than I anticipated. Here is a clip of it, the final track on my novel soundtrack..."Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

I love the acoustic guitar here...in fact, I love the guitar. Hopefully one day, I can learn more songs on my guitar [my current repertoire is limited to "Smelly Cat," "Folsom Prison Blues" and some Dylan.]

Here's the final track for "Tomorrow in Australia."