11,000 words and Counting

Earlier I shared by first line, which wasn't great I thought. But I think I like my first paragraph better:

Detective Arthur Beautyman awoke with a start at the sound of his cell phone vibrating across his desk on the other side of the room. When pressed against the side of his leg in his slacks pocket, he could barely feel it. But now at three o’clock in the morning, the vibration was powerful enough to propel it six inches across his oak desk.

Why do I like the paragraph better than the sentence? Because I think there's a kernel of truth--or at least truthiness--in it, and I hope it's enough to propel a reader forward.

So I got ahead on my novel last night. By the end of the day I needed 10,000 words and I made it to 11,000. Sweetness. Unfortunately that means I still need another 667 today ... this novel in a month business is hard.

Last night was fun, though. There were 6 of us noveling at Suite133 as part of a weekly novel writing group for National Novel Writing Month. It was fun to have a bunch of writers around drinking coffee and plugging away at their keyboards. I felt like Tacoma might be starting its very own Bloombury Group.

Even though that is most definitely a joke, I do have the sense that Tacoma has some promising literary ambitions. Mark Lindquist and "The King of Methlehem," Brent Hartinger and "Geography Club" plus his newest novel "Dreamquest."

And a lot of cool people writing with NaNoWriMo that I know (Keep it up, Chickadee!).

So maybe someday there will be a Tacoma group like there was a Bloomsbury group. And we'll all meet at Doyle's at 11:00 am and start drinking and writing and drinking and writing. It'll be awesome.