I wrote one novel last year – Blood Bound.
I am hoping to write another this year – Lionheart (book one).
Failing that, I would like to have written the majority of that book, and have a lot of another also done. That’s because there is this one thing.
I’ve decided to do NaNo this coming November. For the first time ever.
Don’t worry, there is method to this madness of mine. At least, I think it is madness… no wait. It’s madness.
See, I have so many ideas in my head that they are fighting to get out. As my beta has summed up, when it comes to stories in my head there is “one wizard, one ghost, two fairies on the backburner, the occasional prodding of a mermaid, a superhero, and an entire string of vampires”. And that’s not including fleeting ideas like Earthshakers and the one about the Museum of Time.
Of those ideas, only one – Blood Bound – has been completed, and even that story morphed very quickly and easily into an entire series, with several books already with outlines forming in my head1.
Of the rest, only Lionheart, The Superhero Diaries and Bones have had anything written. And the latter two have been bumped back to “secondary” status.
So why am I doing NaNo this year? Basically to get as much of one idea out and done as I can. I don’t expect to write a full 50 000 words for The Circled Green – my Victorian era faerie story – but I can use it as a means of motivating myself to write a fair chunk of it. 20 000 words of TCG in one month? A heck of a lot better than anything else I have done.
But right now I am working steadily on Lionheart, and using Write Or Die to help me along. My big problem is that I am far too easily distracted, and WOD helps keep me focussed by reminding me when I am starting to wander. I wrote 700 words today, and over 400 those in under the 15 minute time period I allotted myself with WOD.
Imagine what I can do if I do that more than just once a day… I might not be so crazy after all.
- Sadly, I have to wait until book four in the series, Bite Club, for the murderous sorority girls to appear. But when they do… oh, will I have fun. I love that book already. [↩]
