Evolution of the Novel, Vol. 1

I think I'm writing a book.

I say "I think," because I'm not quite sure that the mounds of scrap paper with clever one-liners, twenty-four word processing files with beginnings of chapters, and six hours of minidisc recordings of me talking in goofy British accents actually amount to a book. Eventually, it might. Hence, "I think I'm writing a book." Right now, it's all a collection of jumbled short stories in the life of a fictional character who's a bit more of me than I'd like to admit, but in time, it could be equivalent to my life's work, as silly as that sounds.

What gives me hope is the fact that the basic premise of the book hasn't changed in the approximately three years since I've been scribbling 21st century proverbs into half-used notebooks. I even have a title -- ironically, "Work in Progress" -- and a set of characters which have been basically unaltered. Everything else, unfortunately, is in constant flux; the motivations behind certain characters' actions, secondary characters that flesh out the main ones, narrative style, novel structure -- these things have been changing constantly to the point where I feel very tempted to burn the paper scraps, delete the .doc files, and wipe the minidiscs so I can start all over again.

Actually, I won't go that far. But I am starting over again. Wish me luck.