An Accidental Novel

So, I'm writing this novel. I call it my accidental novel, because it was accidentally begun, the main character was accidentally introduced, his sister accidentally died and left her son to him, there is a fair amount of accidental foreshadowing, and a lot of other accidental bits of plot that I didn't plan. Of course, I haven't planned any of this novel. It is a prime example of a story that takes over and begins to write itself.

I always thought that the novel I wrote last November was pretty unplanned, but I realize now that I had a pretty good idea how it was going to turn out. This one not so much. It's harder to write the less planned one, because I have to stop and figure out where I'm going next, but I think it's turning out much better. I think the plot is more successful, and since I didn't set out with a goal of where I wanted to go I can't be disappointed. And with the last novel, I had set out to have a lot of coincidences and incidents of small worldness, but this one has more of that by far.

My working title is Jude, or sometimes Hey, Jude. Jude, Prince of Tempest is tempting, but a little bit too obvious in its allusion to Hamlet. That's what the whole novel is, by the way. An allusion to Hamlet, and the title character is very heavily inspired by the portrayal of Hamlet by Shawn Law that I saw two weeks ago (and again, twice, last weekend).

We'll see how it turns out. The goal is to write 50,000 words by the end of this month, and to finish it by August 13th, exactly a month after I began. We'll see whether that happens. I have no idea how long it will turn out to be.