I'm Still Sane...Or Am I?

It's officially over. I completed my novel in 3 days, as expected, and while The One-Way Rejuvenation of Allowishus Scrimshaw may not be the most polished novel ever written, I am certainly proud of it. Especially taking into consideration the factors involved.

Due to extenuating circumstances, my original writing partner was not able to collaborate on this project with me and I didn't find out about this setback until 2:00 p.m. Friday afternoon (10 hours before the start of the contest!), so needless to say, I was in a bit of a panic. But I think going at this solo actually worked to my advantage and got my creative juices flowing.

I scraped the original idea of a group of mental patients trapped inside an airplane in favor of something completely impromptu. The idea came to me in a flash as I was staring at the wall.

Here's a basic plot summary: Allowishus Scrimshaw is a polemic philosophy professor and lover of cheese who, after inciting a riot at his university, is fired from his tenured position. In the ensuing months he suffers a complete breakdown, hits bottom and then builds himself back up. (Nice bell curve in effect.) Along the way he encounters whores, whales, rednecks, surrealist restaurants, blood-thirsty Christians, cut-throat businesswomen, cancer patients, a French lesbian who want to have his baby, and more. It's all very picaresque and parts make me laugh out loud. Maybe it's because I hear the characters' voices the way I want to hear them, or maybe it's because parts of the story are genuinely funny. Either way I'm pleased. Anyway, if anybody out there is a fan of Kurt Vonnegut or J.P. Donleavy, it's written in that vein.

So, in a 72 hour period I "completed" 120 pages and 59 chapters. (I'm sure there are some grammatical mistakes or sentences that could be rephrased. Usually the editing process alone takes me three weeks for a 20 page story. I'm hoping the judges of the contest understand the difficulty of the task at hand and grant some leeway.) Some of the chapters are monoglogue, some are dialogue, some are expository prose, some are written like a play, some are written as newspaper articles. There's a whole array. It's a melange of styles, I suppose.

Due to contest rules, I'm not allowed to publish any of excerpts until after the winners have been announce. Until then, hang tight!