I'm probably going to regret this.

I am not attempting to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November 2010.

I am not attempting to write 30 nodes in the month of November 2010.

I am attempting to write 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November 2010, most likely in the form of 30 short stories of 1,667 words or more.

These are first drafts, written at lightning speed, with no editing whatsoever.

Today in 30 First Drafts...

A deeper explanation

As you may know, both from the (typically month-long) delays between consecutive installments of Fine Structure, and from the six months which have elapsed since I last wrote a piece of fiction, I am not a fast writer.

For the most part I spend a great deal of time thinking about how the current work will fit into larger story (particularly future stories), I write the actual prose quite slowly and carefully with much delay for research, I put effort into selecting the correct words, and I spend a great deal of time editing for maximum clarity, punch and non-stupidity.

Until now.

This month, I am writing in extreme hardcore mode. I have been dwelling on a very wide range of short stories for some months now, uncertain about how to pin them all together, but I knew that if I procrastinated enough NaNoWriMo would come along and I would have an excuse to loosen up a little. I am writing at extreme speed with very little regard for forethought, just letting prose go where it wants. I am making very light use of the backspace key. I am explicitly refraining from using reference materials-- quoth Stephen King, it breaks the writer's trance, and if the specific details matter to the story, then it is the story that needs work, not the details.

In my mind, November is the month in which you force yourself produce 50,000 words. December is the month in which you edit those words into something presentable-- assuming that there is anything left afterwards, of course.

Stay with me.

Edit

In case anybody is wondering, these drafts seem to take approximately two and a bit hours each to write. So far.

Follow-up

These are first drafts. Some of them, I'm now developing into finished stories.

The stories Thaumic, Magic NASA, Placebo Engineering, Laura Ferno And The Bomb and The Self-Reliant Heroine all take place in a shared "magic as engineering" sort of universe. I took the best of these concepts and used them for a new and longer story, Ra, which is in progress. Please read!