Saturday, September 30, 2006

It was fun - I'm not ready for the off season

Eliminated on the second to last game of the season? Not bad, not bad at all. I had hoped for a .500 season when it began, and, well, one win tomorrow gets that. The thought of a playoff race had never crossed my mind when spring rolled around, but then we had that awesome April - remember how fun that was? And just to think, if Jerry hadn't given up and stopped trying to win in September, we could have won a game or two more, and, well, that may have just been enough...

I'm going to write a post on the season as soon as it sinks in that we are really done. However, right now I wanted to post about one of my off-season projects, one of many (including the start of a displaced fan club which I will write about later.)

November is National Novel Writing Month. For the second year in a row, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo, a contest of sorts that challenges aspiring novelists to write 50,000 words in one month. I hit 50,000 with nine hours to spare last year on my story, tentively titled Lester Barry Speaks Out or Had Enough.

This year, I will be writing about a guy who loves baseball so much that he has developed the ability to feel what is going to happen before it occurs. He spends all of is free time on baseball, but hanging out with the wrong crowd nearly destroys his love for the game, as he becomes embroiled with a bookie and the gambling crowd who abuse his gift. It's a story about appreciating life and the little things - like baseball - that make it worthwhile.

A minor subplot will theorize about W. P. Kinsella being J.D. Salinger, in much more detail than my previous post on it. I haven't quite decided the dynamic of this part of the story, but it should be fun. I'm reading Margaret Salinger's memoir Dream Catcher - a fascinating look at a very strange and hurting man (ease his pain).

I will be posting chapters here in November, so I hope you will all continue to come to church services. I'd appreciate any feedback and criticism, too, as I will be writing with the intent to publish. One caveat, though - as the nature of this "contest" is to write so many words in so little time, I will be writing quickly to reach the required number of words, which also comes at the expense of quality at times. There will be typos, too. I hate typos.

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