My Five Day Blitz

I was going to wait until next week to post this, but I just couldn't wait.

From Sept. 29th to Oct. 3rd I will be sequestered from society. I know, it's quite mad, but for the good of my craft I must embark on this perilous solo journey to conquer... something. I'm sure it's something stupendous, something that will define my character, and so on and so forth. No but, really I am going to take 5 whole days to write a novella, a short novel, of about 100 pages. That's the median, anywhere between 80 and 120.

I'm used to jumping from story to story, adding a little bit to this, a little bit to that, sometimes giving more time to one story, but ultimately shifting to the next and leaving the others to tread water. This is a huge deal for me, so if you wonder, What the hell is that boy doing? This is all about getting to the nit-grit, to bring out as much as I know about writing and blitz the hell out of it. I know I'm going to be the living dead, and I might even--I can't believe I'm saying this--drink coffee for days on end. Wow. Wasn't so hard. Anyways, I'm dropping a tentative synopsis below. Needs some work. Add some more details when I work the outline a little more. Oh, hell, I just throw up the outline next. Of course, such things are ephemeral. Once I start writing anything can and will happen.

Fort Stone

Eli Marc, a curious, talented boy of 10 lives in Fort Bell, a small town in the middle of a vast, forested state. Eli spends much of his time amassing and pouring over comic books, creating fantastic stories of his own, and avoiding the family cat that, as far as he is concerned, is the black demon of the netherworld (i.e. his basement). But lately, Eli has spent much of his time in the Eighth Fossil Wood, about two miles north of his house, with three of his closest friends.

What exactly have they been up to?

What else would pre-adolescents be up to in a forest but building a fort! A wooden one, half latched on to a dying weeping willow, at the base of giant formations of globular stones of the North Temple Rock.

Of course, the fort needs a name. Upon the completion of the impressively robust edifice, that can withstand the wickedest storm, each of them heads home to ponder some infamous, sky-shaking handle.

The following morning no one agrees. That is until Eli points out the one thing they all missed. It’s surrounded by stones. Why not call it that? And so, Fort Stone is christened.

Eli and friends will face a few challenges to maintain their base of operations as other kids get wind of their castle and encroach upon their exclusive ground. And a mysterious, mute girl shows up unexpectedly, even violently, and Eli is never sure where she stands, who she is, or what wild thing she might do.

Fort Stone is a story of young friends at odds with the forces of nature, the forces of childhood, the forces of the growing heart, and the strongest force of all: the unknown.