Howdy, folks!
In spite of life continuing to happen between the last update and this one, I managed to plot out a book. And build the local world around which the story takes place. Is this update mainly to inform everyone that I am, in fact, doing the NaNo? Yes. Yes it is.
NaNo – for clarity – being short for NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month, wherein the goal is to hit 50k (50,000) words – traditionally in the first draft of a new novel – before the end of November. I’ve participated 8 times (including this one) and actually completed… three? Which is not a great track record, truth be told. I did eventually complete all of the books I started in bygone years, but not necessarily in the same month. (Or year.)
“Belated” update because I probably should have made this update in October, but I was mega-focused on clothing construction, architecture, local flora and fauna, climate, religion, politics, and barbeque – all sorts of other things that one can talk about in worldbuilding but not in polite company. I am now 4600 words into my first draft and done with Chapter 01, which I knew going in was going to be the most difficult. Sometimes, one just has to buckle down and start pedaling to get up that hill. (I say, not actually being able to ride a bike.)
Also for some reason comments seem to be closed on my last post. I’m confused, it may just be something on my end, but if it isn’t I suspect I need to do something behind the curtain to fix it. I just don’t know what. If comments are enabled, assume I’ve since stumbled upon the solution by sheer coincidence.
What Am I Working On?
Urien of Escathir – The NaNo Project. Potentially the first book in a series that may or may not end up being called the Surveyors’ Guild Chronicles. We’ll see what happens first – the end of November or the end of the story. I have a suspicion 50k is going to be easy, this time around… knocking on wood and barring more life happening. My outline has at least twice as many scenes in the list as All’s Well in Asgard did, so it’s going to be a doozy, I just don’t know how much of a doozy. Chapter – and, incidentally, scene – One is almost 5k. If each scene ends up being a whole chapter long (I don’t think they will) and of similar length, this whole project is going to be something on the order of… an absolutely mind-boggling (for me) 520k words. I highly doubt it’ll be that long. I give you all of this math business in lieu of an elevator pitch because I’m still trying to figure out how to condense a plot that long. Let alone where to split the books, if I need to. First story in a new world and it’s… going some kind of way!
The Rest of Uthir – The world of Uthir is bigger than Urien’s little corner of it, and has a lot of history that one could potentially explore. I have a couple of ideas for stories, one of them more prominent in my mind than the others. The story of Nagoa the Ranger and his “bird” Aiwi in the Sasokoyu Stronghold Wars is probably the one I’ll end up writing after Urien’s story, because the setting was heavily inspired by ARK: Survival Evolved (a game/setting I feel very much at home in) except it contains magic instead of tech. So instead of people knocking your walls down with C4 and large therapods, one has to worry about people knocking down walls with fireballs… and large therapods. I’m a dinosaur nerd at heart and fitting big stompy bois into fantasy is a thing I wish to do. (Thanks to Keenan Taylor for blazing that trail with his anthologies. I like this genre Much.) After that… Ehh? I have a couple of characters that I might necromancy from my middle school attempt at novel writing to slap into a fantasy buddy cop type story, if I can find a plot for them. Ancient carnivorous astrologer-mages may be another thing I attempt, if I can find a plot. We’ll see what happens between now and then.
Grifters – Currently on hiatus due to Life and also NaNo. Scheduled to return… probably halfway into December, if not in the first week of January. That’s my current ETA. If I hit 50k before the end of NaNo I’ll pre-record some episodes and then flip-flop between working on finishing Urien’s story and continuing Grifters. Because I… like to make stuff. Or something.
That’s all from me, this month. The grind continues! The stories are taking shape. The troubles continue to require copious bonkage with spanners. Keep on keeping on.