The Citizen’s Sports editor speaks about his first novel

Last November Michael Boylan, The Citizen Newspaper’s own sports editor, participated along with some 101,510 other aspiring novelists to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it is called for short, began in 1999 with the idea that one could write a novel, in the span of a month. That year 21 people set out to write a novel with six coming out victoriously at the end of 30 days.

Since then, the number of participants and “winners” has grown exponentially each year. In 2007, Boylan joined the ranks of 15,333 participants to complete the task at hand, resulting in his first novel, “Time Killer.” “Time Killer” takes place in the town of Cabot, Massachusetts, which is plagued by the first murders in 20 years. It takes the efforts of a writer at the town’s newspaper to crack the case and maybe even save the world.

This weekend, Boylan will speak at the second annual Peachtree City Literary Festival on Saturday at 2 p.m. at city hall. For more information on NaNoWriMo, visit www.nanowrimo.org.

Boylan spoke about “Time Killer” in a recent interview:

• What made you decide to participate in NaNoWriMo?

Two of my colleagues had participated in NaNoWriMo the year before and both of them finished, earning certificates and pats on the back all around. I started a novel that year but ended up hating my idea and never fully committing to the process. Last year, I decided that come Hell or high water I was going to finish.

• What inspired the story for your book?

I had always been told to “write what you know” and I always thought, “Ugh, how boring.” “Time Killer” has a little bit of every thing I know, though. It is set in a fictional town that closely resembles my hometown in Massachusetts and my hero, like me, is a writer for a small town newspaper. There are some big differences between me and my hero though. Peter is almost like me from an alternate universe. I think I also wanted to write the kind of book that I would like to read, so it has some adventure and fantasy and horror and sci-fi.

• What was your writing process like?

I would drop my son off at day care around 8 a.m. and I would come to the office and write as much as I could until 9 a.m. At night, after hanging out with my wife, I would go downstairs and hop on the laptop and write until I met or surpassed my 1,700 words a day. I never re-read anything I wrote until it was all over, because I knew from the failure the year before that the editor in my mind would start doubting the book if I stopped to see how it was turning out.

• How difficult was it for you to write a 50,000-plus word novel in one month?

It was difficult, but not as difficult as I thought it would be. I had good support from my two colleagues, who decided to participate again, and we did some video blogs to keep readers in the loop of how we were doing. This held us accountable and we didn’t want to wimp out in front of the world wide web. I think writing a novel through a contest like NaNoWriMo is a great way to write a novel, because if you keep up your word counts, you can see the progress you are making every day. Once you get to the halfway point – either by words or by the date – you know you can make it and I found that very empowering.

• What was your favorite part about writing “Time Killer”?

Finishing it. Reading the whole thing, from start to finish, was mind-blowing to me. I had never written anything of considerable length before and this was just amazing to me.

• What was the least enjoyable part of the experience?

Editing and some of the self-publishing issues that came up. I went through Lulu.com, which was great, but it always felt like there was one more thing to do before it would be done and officially over. It got a little frustrating.

• Are you planning to participate again this year?

Yes. I will do things a little differently this year, like use an outline and notes, but I am planning on writing another novel and my goal is to greatly exceed the 50,000 words.

• What authors do you feel have most influenced your writing?

My favorite author of all time is Stephen King, so I’m sure that he was an influence more than anyone else, but I also enjoy Dennis Lehane, Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, Christopher Moore, Jasper Forde and Kurt Vonnegut, among many, many others.

• How can people get ahold of a copy of “Time Killer”?

You can go to Lulu.com and type in “Time Killer” in the search engine or go directly to the book by visiting http://www.lulu.com/content/2153144.

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