Don't Give Caffeine to Dragons
Or...I wrote another novel over Labor Day weekend

For the 33rd annual International 3-Day Novel Contest, I pounded out 40,745 words of a young adult novel titled Problems Above Pangaea Moon. I don't get to tell you any more than that. Savvy visitors will recognize that it "feels" like a sequel to Problems on Eldora Prime, the first novel in the young adult, science-fiction/fantasy series to be released from Night Wolf Publications at the end of this month...possibly mid-October at the latest. Savvy visitors would be correct. Because I've turned the manuscript in to the admins at the 3-Day Novel Contest offices, I have to pretend my manuscript no longer exists until they announce winners of the contest in January.

I don't hold out a lot of hope for this year's entry. I drank two 2-liter bottles of diet Pepsi and a large ice cafe latte from Dunkin Donuts while typing those 72 hours. That's an awful lot of caffeine for someone who hasn't had caffeine (doctor's orders) for about 15 years. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It was a long weekend complete with a 20,000-word day Saturday, a power outage Sunday afternoon, and a friend's visit to the emergency room Monday afternoon. I had quite a time of it trying to type amid the interruptions and the crazed dash to the store for stray food and the aforementioned Dunkin Donuts coffee. Somehow, Problems Above Pangaea Moon finished itself Monday afternoon and editing went fairly well into the night hours. I printed it out well before the midnight deadline and mailed it (with a witness statement) during the week.

Now we wait. All several hundred of us writers that put ourselves through the marathon of typing death...wait. :)

"Some days, you just want the dragon to win."
Tags: 3-Day Novel Contest, science fiction, fantasy, Problems on Eldora Prime, Night Wolf Publications, caffeine, dragon, Labor Day