Rebel Without a Clue

I'm not saying I'm a rebel or a rule-breaker, but when National Novel Writing Month gurus suggested charging ahead with one's novel and not stopping to go back and edit, I choked on my own saliva.

50,000 words in a month? Sure.
Not going back to revise until I finished the whole thing? No flippin' way!

That's not how I roll. As I learn more about my characters, I go back and make necessary changes. Otherwise, I might as well be writing a grocery list.

With that in mind, I spent much of today revising the pages I've written so far. Characters made themselves known. Conflict arose on the very first page. Funny dialogue needed to be written. Was I to turn my back on all that? Of course not. Through those revisions, my main character's voice broke through loud and clear today. And I'm lovin' this nervous, nerdy, hula-hooping trivia geek.

Of course the revision and research this morning meant that it took me a solid five hours to get my paltry word count.

And it seems I'm not the only rebel in our house.

Last night, our teenage son was asked to step out of his friend's car by local police. Our son was polite to the officer, but confused about the reason for the stop. The officer mentioned a broken taillight, but nothing else.

Within minutes, our theater geek son, who spends many Saturday mornings feeding the hungry, was frisked. His crime? Um, being a teenager with long hair. If I had a broken taillight, would I have been frisked by a nice young police officer? Unfortunately, probably not. But what I'm getting at here is this -- stay with me, people -- wouldn't justice be better served if this officer, instead of frisking my innocent son and his buddy, were using that time to find the creep who tried to break into a home on our street yesterday?

I'm just sayin' . . .

And as promised . . .

Here is today's trivia question. The answer will be revealed in tomorrow's post. In honor of my trivia-loving main character, I will include a new trivia question daily. Make a guess. Tell your friends to make a guess. And tune in tomorrow to see who's right.

Trivia Question 1: On what part of the human body will you find 516,000 bacteria per square inch?

Today's word count: 1,947
Total word count: 6,338
Goal: 50,000 words
Days remaining: 27