PSA: It’s National Novel Writing Month.

If you’ve no idea what the hell I’m talking about, this really is a thing. Authors descend upon the internet every November and try to write 50,000-word manuscripts over the course of the month.

I don’t know why the goal is 50,000 words because–as far as I can tell, anyway–these are too short to be novels. But whatever gets those words flowing, I say.

Simultaneously, it’s become clear to me that this is the Devil’s work.

One, because only Beelzebub himself could hatch a scheme to challenge notoriously lazy writers to break the bonds of their habitual lackadaisicalness.

Two, because the proof is clear as day in the math. If you divide 50,000 words by 30 days, you get the number 1666.66666667. True story. And this is the mark of the Beast, people! He’s out there laughing at us, pointing, mocking our efforts to write 1,666 words a day. Rubbing it in our collective faces!

My version of NanoWriMo is a little easier. I’m only doing 40,000 words these next 30 days as I finally wrap Degenerate. What’s 40,000 divided by 30, you ask? 1333.33333333. Which means ya done lost, Lucifer. Not today you don’t, so keep moving.

I’m not actively engaged in the official shenanigans of NanoWriMo, but I’m watching from a distance and allowing its inspiration to shine down upon me. All of this to say, end of the month, this book is finished. And then begins the super fun, highly recommended process of trying to sell it. It’s a process right up there with ripping off an infected toenail on the overall enjoyability scale.

About Degenerate. I’ve come to a decision about the storyline, but first I need to provide a little context. When I wrote my debut novel, Dead Weight, and then Sophistication after it, I constantly had to ask myself, are you sure you want to really go for it? Which is to say, throw away any semblance of traditional narratives and really swing for the fences with something weird and out there. With Dead Weight, I pulled back. Tried to stay grounded. Attempted to operate within the accepted norms of traditional post-apocalyptic science-fiction. With Sophistication, I didn’t give a shit. I wrote whatever my fingers told me to write, and the resulting storyline was at times a bizarro-fest. I’m cool with that. I hit the crossroads with Degenerate about 10,000 words ago and decided on pure insanity. So here it comes.