This year, I failed to complete my novel in a month. This is the second year in a row in which I have come up short, making years in which I have succeeded to meet the intended goal of 50,000 words and years in which I have failed both equal. But in looking back at the semester, I think that this may be one of my better efforts, and in looking at my first attempt at a novel so many Novembers ago, I see that my writing has improved.

I intend to finish this novel, because it is part of a larger project on literature as a method of critiquing major social or political or economic issues. In this case, my novel is set in a small, isolated town in northern Idaho (as if any other part of Idaho is not small and isolated) in the autumn of 2001. The September 11 attacks loom large on my characters’ minds. This is the product of a semester of studying war, genocide, and slavery, and I believe that the great sins of this country have yet to fully end. What I have is an extremely rough draft and a lot of ideas. For an English Major, I’m content for now.