Robin Sloan launched his Kickstarter project on August 26 with 4,500 words. By November 18, 84 days later, he had a stack of boxes filled with the printed book.

Now, granted, Annabel Scheme is a 30,000-word novella and not the huge beast I’m working on. (I passed 40,000 words the other night.) On the other hand, 84 days from start to finish is pretty impressive. I’ve been working on this book for more than a year now — beginning in October 2008, when I first sat down and wrote the three paragraphs that now open what’s currently the book’s third chapter.

I thought that filling a novel would be hard — how will I ever fill that many pages? — but now I see that’s not quite true. There are limits. I can’t describe everything, because if I don’t focus in enough there’s not going to be much room for a story. If I keep writing 1000-2000 word scenes, then I can only have 30 or so in my novel. That really limits things. If I get too introspective, include too many elements, that really hinders me by making the whole thing too daggone long. So what I really need to do is be more judicious.

Or else write a 200,000-word monster and hack it down to size later. Both options seem daunting.

Leave I-75 south at exit 95. Don’t head for the truck stops by the northbound lanes. Go west instead, toward White Hall. You’ll see it in the distance on a good day, or at least spot the burnished historical marker in standing at the crossroads by the gas station. Leave White Hall for another day, though. Turn right instead. See a small paper sign stuck in the ground on a stake. The sign is black, and taken up by a large yellow arrow. Inside the arrow reads “This way for Indian Run.”

At the John Deere equipment rental shop, turn left onto Dismal Hollow Road.

The woman doesn’t pause, just keeps walking down onto the street and then into an old farmhouse, gnarled and broken, with white wood siding falling down, and black shutters, and a big oak tree out front. The woman comes to the porch and pauses for a moment, looks around behind her as if to see if anyone’s been following her, or perhaps to see if Aimee is still there. The sun has sunk so low now that it’s not giving any light at all, and despite the glow of the street lights Aimee can’t make out anything on her face. The woman opens the door and goes inside the house. For a moment one of the old house’s lights comes on, but then it goes out again, and there’s nothing.

Yesterday’s word count topped 35,000, which was nice. I’m hoping to make it 36,000 today.

Yes, it’s true that it’s National Novel Writing Month. I guess I’m sort of participating, since I’m writing a novel in November, even if I’m not playing by the official rules.

Aimee goes downstairs and finds Daisy in the dining room lying on her pet bed. She goes to the side door and opens it, and Daisy realizes that she’s going out and flings herself outside. Aimee is about to follow, but first she goes to the closet door under the stairwell and opens it and pulls the chain to turn on the light. Inside the dusty, cobwebbed closet she picks up the old man’s shotgun, which she’s kept clean and oiled and ready to use. (She looked up how to do this on the Internet.) She also slips her fingers into the small waxed box and takes out two shotgun shells, which she slips into the pocket of her pink coat. Then she follows the dog outside.

They were near the forest, and all night before Noah and Aimee had hung white-and-blue-painted paper lanterns in the trees. Inside each they’d written one thing they wished for in their marriage, each item kept secret, even from one another. Aimee had inscribed “find happiness” and “let go of all that holds me” and “live in France.” Noah had written things like “stay together” and “not give up.” The lanterns swayed gently in the morning breeze now, brushing softly against the trunks of trees. After hanging the lanterns Noah and Aimee had opened a bottle of champagne and, tipsy and bubbly, fallen on each other against a tree trunk. Noah yawned loudly in front of their guests. He was still a little bleary eyed.

Aimee wants a cigarette, and a plane ticket to London, and a quiet afternoon in the Bodleian library. She wants forgetfulness, and a jug of wine, and a warm summer day where she can lay down on a grassy bank and watch creek water go by.

So Aimee started with the front. She cataloged the items, gave each one a little yellow sticky note with a number and the room. Everything went down into a spreadsheet, organized by color, size, shape. She didn’t know if she was going to sell everything or turn it into a museum. Or just throw it all out beside the road and wait for someone to come claim what they wanted — not that she’d be able to haul any of it out there in the first place. Already she’d logged 302 items.

But then, what did she know? She was drunk.

“A plate or a bowl or candle holder can be filled with just as much craftsmanship and care as any abstract sculpture, but it’s not just beautiful — it’s functional, too. It’s just as much art. At least, that’s what Noah will tell you if you let him go on long enough.”

That night, back at the hotel, she decides to kill the monster. She stabs it with a pen, tries to strangle it. Its blood is black and thick, like tar, and they roll around on the bleach-smelling sheets of the hotel bed. It’s a mess, black-bloody hand prints everywhere, pieces of the monster coming apart, lying all over the floor. It finally stops moving, its pincers still, every one of its eyes unfocused. Aimee opens the door and heaves its carcass out into the hallway, and just barely manages to shut the door behind it. She sits down on the gaudy carpet, her back to the wall, and cries. The monster’s dead. What’s she going to do now?

Aimee and Noah had only been dating for two weeks when he asked her on a raw March morning to go with him to a wet field halfway to Stamping Ground. When he pulled Aimee’s ancient Mercury off the road and started driving over the rough grass, bumping up and down, Aimee saw a low hill around which clustered a group of scruffy cars disgorging equally scruffy art students who yawned in the cold sunlight.

“There’s the actual kiln part,” Noah said as he drove slowly around to the front. Built low into one side of the mound of earth, it yawned open like a dragon’s mouth. Aimee could barely make out the inside—broken pots and a few brave volunteers who had ventured inside.

“Looks scary,” she said.

It wasn’t Jeff she was in love with so much as the humid Southern mornings, when all that was green and good in the world stood up tall in the May sunlight covered with dew, and the air seemed to draw her into its warm, wet embrace. On those mornings she would walk down Fordham Street with a cup of coffee in her hand as the cars sped by her and her shoes grew wet from brushing against the grass that lined the sidewalk. She would reach the café and go inside, and smell the crisp metallic air conditioning as she stared out into the dazzling sunlight. It wasn’t Jeff who made her feel at home, but those mornings—when she felt connected to the city, and to the entire world. The South had brought her home.