In addition to promising y’all a brand spankin’ new print MISC by the end o’ the year, I’ve also just signed up for National Novel Writing Month. That’s a North America-wide group of hundreds of humans who all vow to complete a first-draft novel (minimum 50,000 words) from Nov. 1 to Nov. 30. Why they had to pick one of the short months is beyond me; but at least they give you more time than the Vancouver-based three-day novel writers get.) I’ll post my progress regularly here, and perhaps even (I’m not guaranteeing anything) show some excerpts.

The tale I’m gonna weave is The Myrtle of Venus, an expansion of an unfinished screenplay project I attempted three or four years ago. It involves the destruction of artist-studio space, the tiresomeness of “edgy” corporate youth culture, the tech-industry bubble, Greek mythology, American history, social satire, hot sex, dorky old TV cartoons, and the world’s blandest woman. (The final version of it, as you might surmise, might be a lot longer than the draft I’m about to start writing.)