Once upon a September...

...and so it begins.

In precisely 91 minutes, the clock starts ticking on my self-imposed deadline. It'd be just like me to overthink how I'm feeling at the moment, so I will describe it in the simplest possible terms. I feel... good. It's only now, as the last few minutes of pre-noveling tick away, that I'm starting to get the jitters. I'm about to dive headfirst into a journey through the backwoods of 16th century Virginia (which is now part of modern-day North Carolina), a barren and unforgiving land to the unwary pioneer. Various dangers abound. Wild animals. Savage Indian warriors. Plague. Disease. Pestilence. Poverty. Writer's block. Which begs just one question:

What am I getting myself into?

I'm not worried. Even if I am, I'm going to bend over backwards to convince myself that I'm not. I always overpack for any and every trip I embark on. And in this case, I've prepared the best way I know how, armed to the teeth with photos, notes, research, background music (see above), and a bit of imagination... the literary version of sunscreen and bug spray, if you will. I've only got a very crudely drawn map, which, ironically, is akin to the prospects of some of my protagonists, the members of the Roanoke colony, venturing into a place unlike any other they'd ever known, abandoning the safety of home for a place that offered unlimited possibility and no guarantees... and why? This was one of the many questions I found myself faced with as I dug into my research, trying to imagine the lives of the characters I ventured to create. Mostly, the answer I found was the desire to follow the path of a formidable faith, one that led them across stormy seas to a place entirely alien to them. For anyone who'd never taken the journey (which was... well, pretty much everyone, at the time), it was a fool's errand. History tells us that those souls who braved the Atlantic did in fact make it to the shores of what is now Hatteras Island and founded a colony, eager to build their lives in the vast and mystical land across the sea. Eleanor White, daughter of the colony's governor, John White, gave birth to the very first English child born in America, Virginia Dare, named for the province on which they landed. After that, however, members of the lost colony somehow disappeared, lost forever to time. To this day, historians have no solid answer to the colonists' fate. Among the most tangible of clues is a gold insignia ring, inscribed with a crest registered to the Kendall family of England.

And that's where the story begins.

That was the seed of my idea, anyway. And what a sapling it has sprouted since then, I'll tell you. Four months? Five? At this point, it's hard to say. I've honestly lost track, myself. I'm not really good with specifics. Which is what makes this all just a little frightening.

1500 words a day, more or less. That's what I've committed to. That's what I need to get me to the 50,000 word count that defines my stumbling creation as a "novel," for the purposes of National Novel Writing Month. For better or worse, I'll cross the finish line on September 30th, with a fledgling manuscript clutched in my fist. Make no mistake - I don't intend to have a copy of Homer's Iliad in my hands at that point. The idea is to have a first draft completed. Historical inaccuracies and plot holes will abound at that point, I'm quite certain. But what I'm banking on to get me through to a finished product at that point is little more than faith.

Faith. (Hold your jokes until the end of the post, please.) A little concept I was named for (that admittedly was my mother's, not mine), a truth that carried a ship of 92 men, 17 women, and 9 children across a fierce ocean, and now, a little something I'm going to hang a very big hope on. Oh, cripes. I must be crazy.

Too late now, though. I've done the homework. I've shared my inspirations with dozens of people. And the funny thing is, no pipe dream I have ever had has been met with as much enthusiasm and support as this one. When I told people I wanted to major in theatre in college, for instance, I was met with a number of quirked eyebrows, polite smiles, and a heaping helping of rather unconvincing enthusiasm. "Oh! Well, that's... nice." This time, though, I'm getting a large amount of fascinated stares, optimistic smiles, and a lot of "Wow? Really?" "Good for you!" "I want to read it!" No one should bank their success on the encouragement of others, but knowing that so many people are behind what I'm doing... it really helps to solidify the thought that I'm doing the right thing.

There are an awful lot of things I'm just not sure about right now. As is so often the case in life, I've got more questions than answers. I'm not sure who or what I can depend on, and I'm well aware that I'm balanced on a precarious ledge, knowing that anything or anyone that surrounds me right now might well drop off without warning. But not this. This is my creation. It's something I've built, something I've got full control over. And while it's a blessing knowing that for once, I'm able to choose how it turns out, it's actually frightening to realize that this all rests on my shoulders. If it all falls flat, I've got no one but myself to blame. I'm relying upon no one and nothing but myself to get through this. That's both a comfort and a threat. I've never been the sort of person to rely on my own thoughts, opinions, or abilities. I always looked to someone else to show the way. I've never taken it upon myself to leap so far into an unknown without a safety net, without someone else there to catch me. But hell, nothing much else that I've tried has worked out entirely so far.

This is about more than just me, though. While I've been researching, thinking, and scribbling notes in a spiral-bound book, somehow, a vivid cast of characters have come to life. Some have stepped straight out of the history books, others have sprung entirely from my own imaginings. My very first character, for instance, leapt straight out of the dark patina that surrounded the oldest known relic ever found on the shores of America. And as that almost unrecognizable lump of metal was polished to its original golden sheen, so, too, did the refined and headstrong young man I imagined had once worn it, a certain Captain Kendall, as the registry aboard the ship bound for the Americas in the spring of 1587 confirms. Without my dedication, this captain Kendall is a brief mention in a ship's manifest. Should I drop this thing altogether, he'll be lost entirely to the shores of time. And while I've known him for the briefest period of time, I feel I owe him more than that.

I guess that's why it's really, really important to me to get this done. For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to do something with my writing. You can guess how many times I've actually done it. I don't know why it's important to do it now, other than to prove to myself that I know where I'm headed. There are a good deal of things that I get frustrated with because I'm of the mind that I can't do anything about them. If only I can conquer this one thing, it'll be one thing that I managed, one big, huge, 50,000 word thing. I guess to a lot of people (you know, Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Bronte), it's not such a big deal at all. To me, though, who never really thought I could do anything... well, it's a hard, swift boot to my own arse.

In short, here's the plan: 1500 words per day. Some more, some less. (Thank God I've got a guidebook in all this.) I'm going to post my word counts periodically. I've got a network of supporters that I'm relying on to keep my head in gear. I may even share passages of the story from time to time. Enthusiasm and a "what happens next" from the potential readers is probably what's going to be the best fuel to keep me going. I know it's not going to go as perfectly as I'd planned. There will be moments of panic. There's probably going to be times when I fall drastically short of the daily 1500 word mark. And there will, undoubtedly, be more than one moment when I'm tempted to shrug my shoulders and offer a halfhearted apology to those who invested their confidence me and silently admonish them (and myself) for ever thinking I could do it. Although I'm banking on the threat of major embarrassment to save me from complete abandonment.

After all, as of the end of this sentence, I'll have already composed 1539 words.

The world may never really know what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke. But if I manage to come through the next 30 days unscathed, I'll have at least one theory. As for what happens to me, I'll have an even better idea.

Two minutes and counting. I'm definitely ready. Let's go.