Under a Gibbous Moon

It finally arrived in the mail. Wait, I should probably go back a step.

Everyone who completed their NaNoWriMo novel back in November was given a free print copy by createspace.com (Amazon’s publishing arm). I finally got around to doing the final edit and submitting it to printed. The process was much faster than the 27 March date they gave me, but I’m not complaining.

Anyway, here it is:

The cover, so glossy!

The spine, a full 233 pages thick

Even though its not really “published” it is still neat to be able to physically hold a book that I wrote. It shall have a revered and holy place on my book shelf.

OK, I’m done now.

Finally, after a long, long, long, long, long time, I have finished the final edit of my 2009 National Novel Writing Month Novel. There is one joy to going back and editing something long after the fact, you realize exactly how much it stinks.

Truly, though, that was the point of the exercise. Well, not so much to write a crappy novel as to just write one at all. I, like many others, get caught up in whether or not the writing or the plot and whatnot is good enough that we never actually getting around to writing anything.

It’s not the worst thing that I’ve ever read but it’ll never be a classic. So here, for your enjoyment, is my novel.

But this time, with a story:

Darth Vader stood at the edge of large desert, the smoking ruin of his tie fighter sticking out of the dune behind him. He knew that he must cross the desert to get off of this miserable planet but he also knew that he lacked the provisions for such a trip.
Vader had nearly resigned himself to his fate when a great feline sped across the sands and came to a stop next to him.

Seizing upon his luck, Vader asked the beast if it would bear him to the nearest spaceport.

The great feline sat back upon its haunches, gave the request a moments thought, and then shook its enormous head.

“The Dark Side and you are one,” it said, “Surely you would slay if given the chance.”

“Never would I do such a thing,” Vader replied, “for I were to slay you in the heat of the desert, I would surely die.”

The cat cocked its head and considered the logic,” All right, climb up on my back and together we shall ride.”

Grabbing onto its fur, Vader mounted the beast and soon they were naught but an orange blur racing across the sands.

Without warning, the great feline felt a tightening in its throat. Gasping for air it tripped and it fell, sliding into the base of an enormous sand dune. It fought and it sputtered but in the end its struggles were insignificant next to the power of the Force.

As the feline breathed its last, it managed to gasp, “But why? Now you will also surely die.”

Darth Vader merely shrugged his shoulders, “I’m a Dark Lord of the Sith, what did you expect?”

Yes, you’ve probably heard this one before, but it’s in the public domain. Take that Aesop!

You may notice a new link at the top of the page. I have decided to release some of the stuff that I have written (and actually finished) under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License.

If you have the inclination to get in some free reading, take a look around. There isn’t much at the moment but it will grow over time.

Last night, I finally managed to break through the 50K barrier. For my efforts I got that nifty little badge to place on my blog. A bit gaudy but it won’t stay up there forever.

Despite the win, my novel is still not done yet. I have yet to finish the first edit. Then after that, it will need more further polishing before I will consider it done, maybe by the end of December. After I am satisfied with it I will be putting it up here as a CC licensed download.

Now that I’m not spending all my time on it, I can finally catch up on current events and actually do some more blogging.