All she wanted was a loving man....

Dating a celebrity: glamour, fame, a jetset life, wealth, dreams come true?

Or is that just the surface?

Join Jackie, a 40-something single black female software developer and dance instructor/performer, as she meets her dream celebrity, known in her diary only as "Drew Smith", at a computer industry awards dinner. Not only did sparks fly, but he's always wanted to meet Jackie?

What? Really?

Really.

"This November" is her diary, describing her life during November 2009. Jackie and "Drew" learn their first night together that they share a common past, and it's the beginning of an interesting month. Drew, good-looking as well as knowledgeable, a world-famous celebrity, has always been reclusive, to the point that the paparazzi are on a mission to out him as a closeted homosexual. His relationships have always been private.

Will the paparazzi find out about her? What about Drew's stalkers? Can Jackie lead a normal life while hiding someone who is known world-wide? And what about her diary? What if someone finds it? What if Drew finds out she's writing it? Could this ruin their relationship?

This is my novel. The idea began as a conversation several years ago, when someone suggested that I find a way to meet a certain celebrity, since he was less likely to reject me for being intelligent (that has continued to be a rather huge block in my quest for a first date sharing a McDonald's happy meal). The argument ensued over this particular celebrity being gay or not.

The idea fascinated me for more than a few years, I'd play out various scenarios in my head. How we'd meet, our first date, what we'd do together. I thought of blogging the story as if it were really happening, but that was just a dream that didn't happen.

Then a friend tweeted about NaNoWriMo -- writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Since it required that one start a brand new unwritten story, here was one ready to write. Bingo. Thanks, Lisa. I started writing on November 1st at 1:57am. Away I went!

And I did it! By January, I had over 97,000 words written. I hadn't scribbled anything as much as a paper since 1985, except for a few blogs posts. Now I'm editing. Not as much fun as writing, but equally as important. I printed out the manuscript and I'm still marking it up. I don't think I'll be hitting the computer again to do rewrites until March.

I left the editing alone for about a week, not touching the manuscript at all. That gave me enough distance to look at things more objectively when I picked it up again two nights ago. I'm slashing and cutting more now than when I first started editing a month ago. This is good.

That's my status as of today. It's been hard to do it in the evenings after work, but I'm getting better at it. I'll have more time this weekend.

I'll keep you posted, and will throw out an excerpt or two. Thanks for reading!