Lousy Writer 13

Author bio:

Lousy Writer 13, also known as Rob, is a software developer despite his hatred of computers and technology in general. As the lead technologist at Marty’s Fish and Shoe Mart, where we provide freshly caught shad to our freshly shod clients, Rob, a vegetarian, has written many complicated and unintelligible web pages and computer programs, all in the name of science and Vegetarian World Domination.

One morning, after a particularly bad day and night at the office, Rob awoke and started talking to himself, despite the advice of his loving wife, children and dog. “Self,” he said, “You do so well at writing bad software… you would be a natural at writing a bad novel!”

So Rob set out on a quest to find a plausible reason to drink even more coffee as well as an excuse to spend even less time sleeping. On October 2, 2006, that quest was completed and Rob entered the realm of NaNoWriMo, feeling like a big dream, a dream which included neither fish nor feet, was just about to be fulfilled.

His first NaNoNovel, “Children of the Stars” (Science Fiction) came out of November 2006 with 50,010 words and absolutely no plot. Several years of editing later, this inaugural literary masterpiece contains over 80,000 words and, you'll be happy to know, still no plot.

With this stellar success at writing bad novels under his belt, Rob decided that it would be worthwhile to do it again and so he began his second NaNoWriMo novel, “Darkness Falls” (Fantasy), in November 2007, with little more than a title, some calm, soothing cover art and a blank Microsoft Word document. Feeling that it was going way too smoothly, Rob volunteered to help out with the tech support on the NaNoWriMo site. With the calmness that the introduction of this additional chaos brought, Rob wrote with an abandon that had previously been unseen from a fish and shoe technologist and came out of November 2007 with nearly 57,000 words and something approaching a plot. With very limited editing thus far, “Darkness Falls” has now approached 60,000 words and still, surprisingly, has a plot.

NaNoWriMo 2008 brought the title of "Moderator" to Rob's profile and he increased his bad influence on the Tech forums. It also brought the world a sequel to 2007's "Darkness Falls", titled "Dark Storm Rising". It was a mad dash to the finish, including massive efforts to compete with other authors who struggled that year. He crossed the finish line with 54,013 words that he has not yet looked at since November 30, 2008.

NaNoWriMo 2009 kept the title of "Moderator" on Rob's profile (both on the YWP and the main site) and he put his mad programming skillz (as they're called in the biz) to work by coding a few bug fixes and adding a feature to the NaNoWriMo site. It also brought the world a horrifically bad novel called "The Dark Tower" (Science Fiction), which was supposed to be a December 22, 2012 post-apocalyptic doomsday story, but really suffered from neglect and an inability to focus on anything. 50,016 words were scrawled out, none of which has seen the light of day since November 30, 2009. November 2009 is a month Rob would love to wipe from history.

NaNoWriMo 2010 brought forth a novel called "The Glern Rebellion" (Science Fiction). This story was going fantastically well... until Rob got pneumonia after going to the doctor and getting told he was the spitting image of good health (seriously, the next morning he woke up with a 103 degree (F) fever). Two weeks of recovering while also doing a vaguely okay job of moderating the tech forums again left the novel in chaos, but Rob was able to make a frantic dash to the end and squeak out 50,022 words. Rob is reasonably certain the Microsoft Word document that contains these words still opens, but he hasn't tried since November 30, 2010. He does intend to revisit this novel, though, as it was a fun one when he could focus on it. November 2010 is a month Rob would love to wipe from history.

As of this writing, Rob has no idea what he will write for NaNoWriMo 2011, though he is sure that it will likely contain a vegetarian hero, the number 13, lots of coffee, the letters Q, X, W and maybe a U or two, and either a spaceship, a talking fish hanging on a wall or a potato with mystical powers. Or maybe a monkey -- coffee-drinking, vegetarian monkeys always make for a good story, don't they?

On the publication front, 2011 finds Rob with stories in 4 anthologies all of which are, or will soon be, available in electronic and paperback forms. "Thirteen Feathers" is in Chinese Whisperings: The Yang Book and "Out of the Darkness" is in Chinese Whisperings: The Red Book. Both of these stories would be categorized as general fiction, which is not Rob's ordinary path. The other two stories, "Escape from Paradise" in Nothing But Flowers and "All I Wanted" in Eighty-Nine are more familiar speculative fiction efforts. Rob also co-wrote a full-length script in 2011, titled "The Good Old Days" (fantasy). This play was staged by the Cross Creek Players September 29, 2011 through October 1, 2011.

As Rob begins preparing for this year's NaNoWriMo extravaganza, his thoughts continue to churn toward the next page turner to be spawned from the depths of his mind. Will the upcoming literary gem be the one that will put Rob over the top so that he can finally stop coming home smelling like dead fish and dirty feet? Only time will tell.