Article 2

For 20 years, I attempted and failed several times to write a long-form novel. Still, in December 2015, I decided that I would make one last attempt. I determined to do so by writing on the novel everyday during the year 2016. I ordered myself the constraint: the writing could be one sentence or 10,000 words but I had to write everyday. I am delighted to announce that, for the first time as a writer, I did succeed in writing a long form novel: it bears the working title, The 1,146^th Fairy Tale.

As this was my first prolonged attempt at novel-writing, I also decided on the 76^th day of hewing to my daily writing schedule that I would make my process public by occasionally noting updates on Facebook. My idea was going public would fortify me not to give up as doing so would be a public humiliation—I believe that strategy worked several times as the year unfolded, especially on the days that I felt the writing wasn’t working well.

The following presents my Facebook notes of my novel-writing process, usually illustrated with a selfie. Selfies on their own don’t interest me, but my first occurred after a long, exhausting process after midnight—I usually wrote at night. Looking at my drawn face, I became interested in exploring the Midnight Selfie or Midnight’s Selfie. Lastly, as one can observe, humor became important in helping me maintain the necessary discipline to finish the novel. Please join me in my journey to the very last post on December 31, 2016.