Back in the days of valiant knights in shining armour, a challenge to combat was signaled by the throwing down of a plate metal or chain mail glove known as a gauntlet. If the challenged knight picked up the gauntlet, it signified his acceptance of the duel, and what brave knight could refuse such a call-out?

My new gauntlet has come in the form of a second idea for a novel. It arrived and coalesced with such force that I knew I had to sit down and start writing it immediately. Over the last six days I’ve laid down the first 11,000 words, and I plan to continue writing until it’s time to fly back to Vancouver. It hasn’t been easy to find a comfortable place to sit and write here, and I’ve been having to make do with the loud and bustling restaurants thronging with kids on spring break. I have been purposely putting off the writing of my original story until I returned home and secured a quiet place to sit down to writing each day, but this new story has a certain urgency that has commanded me to set fingers to keyboard and get on with it.

Because of the relatively static nature of my life here in Costa Rica, and because this new project is taking a lot of my time and mental energy, the blog will be shifting focus more quickly than I had anticipated.

For what will hopefully be the bulk of the rest of the year, I’ll be using the blog to write about my attempts to make it through the first drafts of not one, but two novels for a total of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200,000 words. This year promises to be one of the most exciting of my life. The decisions that led me to this moment took more then ten years of incubation and nurturing to mature, and while I’m not setting out to chronicle anything overly original or ground-breaking, I hope to add my voice to the community of people setting out to do something they’ve always dreamed about.

Expect to read about the ups and downs of committing to large writing project, from 7,000 word days where the words flow like honey, to the dreadful weeks of staring at a blinking cursor wondering how I’ll ever finish. You’ll see the most embarrassing and debilitating thoughts and agents working against me, and possibly learn a secret or two to finding a way to success. I’ll share my thoughts on the practicalities of outlining, character development, keeping the plot moving forward, writing with an eye towards your audience, and of keeping your ass in the chair and the words moving across the screen.

If you’re new to the blog, I hope you learn a thing or two about moving forward with yur own writing goals, and if you’ve been reading because of my travel posts, you might just find a way to apply some of my lessons to your own experiences in the world of non-fiction writing.

I’m sure you’re all eager to read the details of what this new and exciting story idea is, but for now all I’ll say is one word: Superheroes. That’s right, superheroes. Stay tuned to find out more about this story, and the manuscript that will follow it later this year.

What about you? Any new projects on the go for 2010?