NaNoWriMo

That's National Novel Writing Month to you. It's that time of the year again, when writers everywhere hogtie their inner editor and rattle off 50,000 words in 30 days.

Your humble author counts himself among the participants and will update you, the reader, as to his progress in word count and substance, by way of quantified data and excerpts.

Day 1: 2,050

Dawn approached and the mouth of the valley opened a welcoming expanse, the soft earth underfoot a sweet relief from the punishing rock. In the distance the sound of civilization could be heard, mastering nature with adolescent awkwardness. To view life being lived from a distance is a somewhat morbid affair. There is always something of dying in living, and a farmer's hoe can seem to be digging a grave at least as much as digging a home for food. Or the infant's cry, which echoed through the valley, must after all be mourning something. Perhaps it was having been born in the first place. We who are alive are in receipt of the most gracious consolation prize in the universe.