This Sunday will officially mark the beginning of October. Not only is it my favorite month of the year for containing Halloween, my second favorite holiday, but it is also that wonderful month where I get to start panicking about my plans for Nanowrimo and my preoccupation during the entire month of November.
I had originally planned, in fact up until a couple weeks ago I planned, to work on the first book in my new murder mystery series for Nanowrimo this year. I have title ideas, some character development and several methods for victims to die but in order to do it right there are a number of things I need to research for this series and I want to do it justice so I am postponing work on that series at the moment. Instead I decided to work on book three in a different series.
Nanowrimo has been a great thing for me over the past several years. It forced me to finally complete my debut novel Never Give Up, something that only took me eight years to accomplish. It also gave me relief from my intense fear that Never Give Up might be the only story I had inside me. I have proven time and again the voices will never be silent in my mind. I took a year off from Nano the following year but returned in 2012 to write Breathe. That is one I am still not happy with but hope to find the right formula to make it what I know it can be and release it in the near future.
After Breathe came one of my favorite books, Welcome to Syn (working title). It is the first in a seven book series and while it has sat in its original draft for the past four years I am thrilled to know I will get to rejoin those characters soon. They are some of the most inventive and truly fun characters I have ever written. It was the first book I wasn't afraid to be a little dark in and it allowed me a freedom I had yet to experience. The Syntel sisters will definitely be some of my favorites forever.
In 2015 I wrote Voices In My Head. The story of an author whose creations live inside her mind and tell her the stories while she simply acts as the medium by which those stories are shared with the world. But what happens when a character wants to be more than just words on a page? What happens when they possess a power that controls not only the story they are in but the author writing the words? Can she stop her own creation before he finds a way to control her too? Chelsea Perella is one I relate to intensely but through her book we meet Samantha Stiles and Chelsea's daughter Amanda. Samantha became the focus for book two and I am preparing this year to focus on Amanda's journey. If an when I complete Amanda's book it will be a full trilogy and while there is a fourth book related to the trilogy, those first three will be the closest I have come to finishing a series.
Nanowrimo pushed me to write and not make excuses. It forced me to face my fear about my own level of creativity and it has been a large catalyst in moving me forward as a writer. There are a number of people that do not like to participate, will bad mouth or look down on people that take part in the challenge but for me I can honestly say I wouldn't be a writer today if it weren't for Nanowrimo.
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