Can One Write a Novel in Three Days?

It's almost 8:30pm on a Friday evening, and I am in upstate New York with my friend Z.  I am here - my stated purpose for being here - is to participate in the Three Day Novel Writing Contest, which happens over Labor Day weekend, and can be done from anywhere in the world.  You don't have to go to New York, although I've done the contest before, and I know from experience that it's not easy to do at home, where distractions are legion.  I thought, I'll go away, I'll be with a friend (and his family - sort of an artists colony type place) and be supported in my endeavor. Yea, forced into it, I daresay - if I were to back out or cop out now, he simply wouldn't let me.

But as almost any writer can tell you, facing the start of a novel, even a short one, even a three day one, is a daunting prospect, and now that the hour draws close (technically, we start at midnight but we can make an outline prior, which I have not done and think I should be doing in the time I have left before this marathon begins), I feel like doing almost anything else. What, I think, have I gotten myself into?

I had ten days off.  It's not easy, in my job, to get time off, and no one does my work for me while I am gone, so I'm having all these thoughts of "wasting" this time.  Why didn't I instead go to Amsterdam, or the Grand Canyon, or a spa?  Why a novel?  Why, of all the things a person CAN do, should I do this?

But then I called my partner, J, and for some encouragement, and he said, "What exactly are you worried about?  That you are wasting your time doing something creative?  That you might bring something new and wonderful in the world, instead of *just* relaxing?  That you might - what?  Accomplish TOO much?"  I saw his point.

And after all, I got myself here. I decided to do this, and now I am having doubts about it.  I suddenly feel my subject matter is stupid, limiting, or dull.  My plot won't interest.  My characters will be flat.  It all seems so grim that I want to give up, and then remember, I CHOSE to do this. I am only doing it because I really actually DO want to.

The reluctance and dread is, I guess, simply indicating the fear of creation.  I believe all humans have an innate desire to create - whether it' art or buildings or other humans - and of course, we want to create something GOOD.  That's the fear.  That it won't be good.  That what comes out of us might be bad.  Be crap.  Be drivel, schlock, tripe.  Because if we create crap, doesn't mean that we are ourselves crappy? 

That's the party line, I think, but not necessarily true.  Creation, if done authentically, is always worth it.  It's not a lead into something else; it IS the thing.  It's something fundamental, and good and bad are just judgements, and as is so often the case with judgements, they just get in the way of real life.

The trick, I think, is to just DO IT.  Don't worry about the fear and judgement.  Just act. Just write.  So, here I go to start an outline, and then turn that into a novel, and then - the really hard part - I hope to feel accomplished, worthy, and human, whether I like what I have written (will have written) or not.  Acceptance.  It's funny how the one thing we all want so much is the one thing we so rarely give ourselves.

Wish me luck!  I will keep you posted - if I can stand to write anything else after trying to write a novel in three days!