I look nothing like this photo, at this point. Picture my hair in the world’s messiest bun, my shirt covered in stains, and you’ll be approaching the idea.

It’s the final day of the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest. It’s 2:40 PM. I haven’t written anything since 8:30 yesterday morning. The short story is that my husband and I went to the gym, and I had the World’s Worst Workout, and managed to hurt my neck/shoulder area somehow. I ended up laying on the couch most of yesterday, wanting to write, but feeling way too Hunchback of Notre Dame to do it.

Maybe this is just a physical manifestation of my own fear and loathing. Whatever the case, I’m way behind. But I do aim to crank out at least 10,000 more words before this contest is over. It won’t quite be a novel, but it might qualify as a novella, and that’s good enough for me. After all, you can always add more later.

I think the concept of the 3-day novel is an interesting one, as it’s much more about quickly pencilling out rough sketches than hammering away long and hard at a chunk of rock destined to be a massive sculpture. Unless you have been thinking about this novel all year long, to finally spew it forth in a burst of 72 hours, it won’t quite be fully formed anyway. And that’s totally fine. Rough drafts should be shitty. They shouldn’t be perfect and well-crafted. They never will be. There might be a few lines here and there that are well done, and overall the thing could be a diamond, but it’ll always need polishing and tumbling and a good belt sander to take the edges off and finally make it beautiful. And that, my friend, takes far more time and effort than 72 hours will ever allow.

In any event, I’m back to the salt mines for now. I’ll be there until 11:59 tonight. Wish me luck!