Reflecting on NaNoWriMo 2021

It’s time for a blog update! First of all, Withered Kingdom is now available in paperback! Go check it out now, here: LINK. I planned for it to be released back on Halloween, but there were issues with the cover. Basically, the “D” of “Withered” was going to be cut off by the printer, so the paperback version features a new design that I’m rather proud of. It’s just 12 dollars USD, so go ahead, grab it! It makes a great holiday present.

An Overview of the Series

NaNoWriMo 2021 has been an interesting experience. None have been quite normal, but at least this time, I was able to go back to the book that is furthest along in the timeline for the series and work on it. Withered Kingdom is the first part of what I call “The Rebirth of Gia.”

The sequel, a slightly longer novel that wraps up Gia’s first major adventure, is on the way. Book 2 will be ready by 2022, but I’m not sure when.

After that comes book 3, a novel from the perspective of a different major character telling a vital side story.

Last year’s NaNoWriMo was me realizing I needed to put an entire book between that story and the next one, which I had already started years earlier. With book 4 drafted last year, I was able to get back to what is now book 5.

Book 5 is THE BIG ONE. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s the big story that everything else has been building to. I do have plans for many books after that, but Book 5 will bring together dozens of plot threads, characters, and apparent loose ends from the other books. It’s already more than 200,000 words long in its initial draft, and I’m not even halfway done, so it will be a massive book.

NaNoWriMo 2021: Something Darker

Inspired by a chapter title in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, I would call Nano 2021 “something darker.” All 50k words from this November were dedicated to heightening the drama of the story. The character’s flaws were meant to show more, their conflicts become more personal, and their emotional states deteriorate, plus some sad plot moments before the big event that takes place in the middle. I did not get to write the middle, but I set it up. If it was November 1st 2022 tomorrow, I would be getting to the big clash in the middle in just a few days. Good thing it isn’t, because I’m tired of writing as much as I did as quickly as I did.

Being that I was deliberately writing things that are meant to be sad, depressing, disappointing, or otherwise negative, it was sometimes hard to write what I knew I needed to write. I even came around to deciding on the spot that I needed to kill off a character I had just introduced. Thinking the situation over, the story would have been weakened by keeping the character alive. Up to this point in the series, death is treated either as trivial (for trivial characters) or heroic for most of the more main characters. In this case, it’s too sudden to feel heroic, and too climactic to be trivial. Like I said, something darker.

The Heist

I took a chance with a type of story I haven’t written before. I dedicated a few days in a row to writing about a single scene that can best be described as a heist. Writing with stealth and subtlety as major themes helped me break my habit of writing conflict that was either handled entirely through dialogue or description of open combat. It ended up being a much longer scene than I planned, but I think it might be a favorite for readers.

The (Im)Persistence of Memory

The last time I worked on this book, it was November 2018. I lived in a different place, I was newly married, and working third shift. So much changed in my life between then and now that it’s hard to believe things were ever like that. Since my memory is garbage, it was hard to remember what to write next without going back and rereading portions of my 2018 writing, and I barely did. That means when I go back and do a second draft of this already massive manuscript, I will need to fill in events between what I wrote then and what I wrote just through this month. I deliberately advanced time about 6 months in the story and put characters where I wanted them just to set up for more progress into the story.

What did I learn from that? My memory is garbage, and I will need to make a post-writing outline with this book just to make sure I know what’s going on as I navigate through it. I haven’t really needed to do anything like that with any stories I have written so far, but nothing I have written before was anywhere near this long. Outline writing is not my thing, but notes after the fact are different.

How to Write a Villain

Do I know how to write a villain? No, not really, but I’m trying. This nano taught me from experience more about the difference between villains with compelling motives/sympathetic personality, and villains that just want to be evil for evil’s sake. While the villains of books 1-4 are more like the latter, I’m putting a lot more effort into making the villain of book 5 more conflicting to root against. I have a long way to go before that really comes to fruition, but some of the ground work has started.

Looking to Next November

Next November, I will be picking up where I left off this year. I do plan to add little bits and pieces to book 5 between now and then, but most of my work writing/editing will be spent on getting book 2 ready for publication. The story is on my mind though, and I will keep working on it so my terrible memory doesn’t ruin everything. The next 11 months represent a big opportunity, and I’m challenging myself to do more before next November arrives. Until then, enjoy Withered Kingdom on kindle and paperback!