So what have I done today?

-- Organized my story notes.

-- Went through my stories and realized I have three finished manuscripts (two of which are only first drafts), one story that's two-thirds of the way done (although it's in present tense and multiple first-person POVs and is generally ridiculous), two that are halfway done, one that's a quarter of the way done, one with three chapters done, one with one chapter done, one with nothing written yet, and about thirty random story ideas I've just saved but done nothing with, not counting the last seven books of the Books of Boggs.

Uh ... heh.

-- Went out and got some sun for a while so I don't look so much like one of those cave fish that are translucent so that their neon livers can light their way or whatever.

EDIT: Oh, and also I'm down to 146 pounds. It's got to be the exercise, since I've kept that up but knocked back a bag of Cheetos over the last few days and a liter of Pepsi today. Heh.

So I've been thinking. (And boy, are my arms tired. Or something.)

I was thinking about doing a writers' workshop of sorts.

What I've been toying with is the idea of getting writers who've never actually finished a real manuscript to, you know, finish one. I love NaNoWriMo, but I know there's a lot of people who never actually find the time to finish or hit 50k, stop writing, and never go back to it or stall completely on the rest of the manuscript. And doing it all in one month is like writer boot camp.

So here's what I was thinking. It would be a challenge that would last the length of a school year, so ... like, starting on Labor Day, lasting until June 1st. Writers who've never written a full manuscript would not have to start writing the novel on Labor Day and have it finished by June. The challenge would be less about achieving a word count and more about building a novel from the foundation up, so that you might not even start writing until October or November or maybe even later than that, and hopefully being at a point on June 1st where, even if you're not done with the first draft, you're on enough of a roll to get there on your own.

There'd be two different kinds of entrants in this challenge:

1. People who've never been able to finish an original manuscript before.
2. People who have (whether or not they've been published yet -- *cough*), have lots of tricks up their sleeve, and are willing to act as teachers, cheerleaders, personal tutors, and -- if necessary -- drill sergeants. ;)

The people who've already finished manuscripts before would not be obligated to write anything for the challenge. You could sign up if you just want to encourage someone else to achieve the milestone of getting a completed first draft.

The people who've never finished a manuscript wouldn't be held to any word count pace unless they wanted to. If you need that sort of accountability, we can provide that. If you need someone to talk out your story ideas with, we can provide that. If you need someone to read the first chapter of your story and tell you whether or not you should keep going because you're that paranoid, we can do that, too. That's what those of us who've finished a manuscript would be there for. :)

The thing is, you'd have to come into it with a willingness to hear both the good and the bad. This wouldn't be a big circle jerk. We're not there to give you a cuddly ego massage. You'll get constructive criticism, so you'll be hearing what you're doing right and if necessary what you're doing wrong. Hell, you can get more than one opinion if need be.

Would anybody be interested in something like that? Or am I just cracked in the head?