I'm in training for a literary marathon

A friend has given my one of the greatest compliments of all times; she's invited me to participate in a 3-day novel writing competition as a joint activity Labour Day weekend. (Another friend invited me to blog with her, but I was "une grosse poule froid" to do anything about it, until starting up Mongo Adventurers in a fit of crackling creativity).

I think it was the same crackling creativity or perhaps the high of birthing a large deliverable at work that got me to agree to dispose of my long weekend to long hours of writing about a period in a family's life that she'd been living with in her head for over 14 years. Or perhaps her story was just one that was too good to leave alone, as she teased me with tantalizing bits during a morning debrief, followed by an afternoon chit chat. One thing lead to another, and now I just can't help myself. I've been sucked in.

I have few expectations of the exercise except to spend several hours before the computer, climbing into a world of characters that I readily see. I hope to be able to capture their story as the picture plays before me. It's going to be a bit of a ping-pong type co-authoring exercise. I liken it to the experiment that the CBC did last year with writers from each of the 10 provinces in Canada, having each write a piece of the story as it traveled from East to West.

My co-conspirator and I are still working out the kinks of the story that are allowable (like creating an outline, like having an agreed to plot, like identifying who's going to do what). With two lunch hours left to hash it out before we begin, I'm starting to feel vicarious nerves that she's been carrying since pitching the idea. Three more sleeps (or two and a half if I'm to start the first leg of the race as of midnight Friday). Hooh boys.