My son, Keith, and I are each going to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in thirty-one days, starting May 1. It’s all the result of a book called No Plot No Problem by Chris Baty, founder of National Novel Writing Month.

Writing a novel is a lot different from writing a mini essay every day; even if I added the words of all the essays I’ve written in a given month, it would hardly make a dent in 50,000 words. But the object, according to Baty, is not carefully edited quality but rather randomly written quantity. Hence, the title No Plot No Problem.

Plot has always been elusive to me, and one premise of Baty’s particular writing approach is that a well-outlined plot is not an essential criteria for success.

About ten years ago, I wrote a novel called The Personals Chronicles. Even entered it in a contest and won first prize of $1000 and a meeting with a real-live New York publisher. I was more excited at the prospect of meeting a publisher face-to-face than I was about the money, since I’ve wanted to be an author all my life. Authors are writers who have made it.

I knew The Personals Chronicles needed work, but I looked forward to hearing the publisher say, “I like this novel well enough that I’m going to offer you a contract, provided you make the following changes.” There would follow a laundry list of suggestions that I would dutifully integrate into my masterpiece. But the publisher had different plans. “This novel really has no plot,” he said in his thirty-something voice. You have a nice writing style, but it doesn’t go anywhere.” Which was the same comment another publisher said about another work maybe fifteen years earlier. In both cases, I put the manuscripts away.

It’s not that I’m averse to learning more about plot development, but for the time being I’m going to go with Chris Baty, because he seems to espouse a method I’ve already mastered. I just have to come up with 50,000 words. Given my penchant for ten minute bursts, that could be a problem.

‘Only’ is a tricky word. Basically it means “without others; alone; solely; exclusively,” as in “This document is for your eyes only.” (I get my credibility from Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.) In this instance, the meaning is very clear.

However, according to my dictionary, there are at least nine other shades of meaning, some of which are more or less clear than the example above. Take, for instance, “Only you will regret your harsh words to me.” This implies that the harsh words directed to me are from you and that no one else will ever regret harsh words toward me. But if you said, “You will regret only the harsh words you directed toward me”; then the meaning suggests that there are words that you and I have had that you do not regret. It’s less of an absolute.

It’s most probable that one’s entrance into college does not hinge on where this four-letter word hides in a sentence. It’s also most probable that the world will not end because of where the word ‘only’ is placed.

In fact, my dictionary says that ‘only’ is placed in front of a verb more and more often and that the meaning is usually understood. For instance, “She only sold her stock because she was destitute” suggests she wouldn’t have sold it otherwise. And “He only dropped out of school because his mother was ill” suggests the same thing.

At the same time, I’m a purist. So when I compare the last two sentences with the one in the first paragraph, I see hair-splitting differences. Which cause me to think that the last two sentences could be written as: “She sold her stock only because she was destitute” or “He dropped out of school only because his mother was ill.”

This takes ‘only’ away from its verb component and makes the meaning of the sentence clearer. I for one think that’s important.