Yeah, it's Monday and I should be working, but I never quite got in the mood today, Oh, I've worked pretty much all day, but not with any degree of enthusiasm, you know?

I've made a lot of lists of things I should be doing. I haven't so much done most of them yet as I have, you know, contemplated the process of beginning each project. That kind of working.

Maybe if I squint, I can convince myself it’s a sort of zen approach?

And, hey, NaNoWriMo may be viable again. No, I don't have more spare time than I'd thought. In fact, just last night I found myself promising to attend a family reunion over the Thanksgiving holiday (auugghh!!) but an opening line for a book popped into my head and I was sort of thinking, well, why not?

Hey, it's a start. I mean, it's as much as I had to go on last year, okay?

Well, no, last year I had an opening line and a character name, come to think of it. But I still have five or six days to name my character, so there's time.

Actually, I have to have two main character names and it just occurred to me that one of them absolutely has to be named Fred. Being named Fred isn't going to improve the quality of his life, but I don't care so much about that. It will add some interesting texture to the character*, which is what's important.

(* That's pure swank since I don't yet know exactly who he is.)

Possibly I've been reading too much Eddings, but I've decided that whatever effort I make this year is going to be in the context of a fantasy novel. I like attempting fantasy novels. You're not bothered by mundane motivations of earthbound characters. I mean, if all else fails, you can invent a new species of some kind and they can conform to whatever set of drives and instincts suit your needs. And if your plot is improbably convoluted and tiresome, you can always have a character with magic power to get the hero out of sticky wickets.

Seriously, I have an idea or two about each of the two main characters, but if I tell you, you might steal my ideas.

I don't mind the theft so much, but the idea that you might take said ideas and write them better than I can really does worry me, so I'm keeping it all a secret.