Thursday, March 7, 2013

Prepping for CampNanoWriMo

Well, it's that time of year again!  Or at least one of those times of the year.  April will mark the first of two Camp National Novel Writing Months that will happen this year, the next being the one in July followed by the main event in November.  I've tried by hand at the last few years' worth of NaNos to no avail at success, but I'm feeling especially ambitious this time around.  Bring on the novel writing!

But the question is, as it is every single time around, what to do for my April NaNo?  I'm already in the middle of working on my project Starbound, and I'd feel like I was cheating if I just tacked that on or started my word count at where I've left off there.  One thing is for certain, I want to tackle something in the universe of Mahtim--the world in which my novel takes place--but a different tale.

I have a few ideas, starting with an abandoned NaNo project from 2011 that fell apart.  It was called Skybound, and it was a light steampunk/fantasy hybrid set about almost twenty years before the events of Starbound, so I guess you could say it's a prequel story.  It centers around Lorelon, a kingdom that became isolated geographically after a cataclysmic event called the Starfall, and was left to perish.  Instead of dying out, the people advance far beyond the rest of the world (it's steampunk, so I'm sure you have an idea how) and use this new technology to escape the literally sinking rock they're living on and settle out on sky islands, remnants of the Gods' world hanging in the atmosphere over the ocean.  The story revolves around a  scholar named Cedric, a pirate named Jan and the uncovering of the truth behind Lorelon's terrific and terrifying progress.

Another idea goes even farther back in the timeline, just after Starfall happened.  It has to do with the dark times of Mahtim when the Clerics began to realize they no longer had access to their divine powers and the realm of the gods was destroyed.  I have only vague ideas on this one.

My last is a story about what actually happened to cause the Starfall to occur.  This centers around the elven archmage Verdelet and the human twin daughters he is charged to raise.  A prophecy is fulfilled through attempts to avoid it.

Just by looking, I know I definitely have more interest and more outlined material to work with concerning Skybound.    And it would make a lot more sense too, since I'm working on its prodigy right now and all of that information is relevant and accessible.  But I just don't know yet.  To be honest, I'm a little jaded about taking it on again as a NaNo project, only to potentially let it down again.  But that's the point of NaNo, isn't it?  To stop thinking and just write?

One thing is for certain, whatever I work on I want to be certain of what I'm working on, because in the past I've gone full throttle with a plan for maybe five days and then flip-flopped to something else.  Hopefully that won't be an issue this time around.  I have more than enough writing projects to keep me stimulated (this blog, for instance, not to mention my three thousand tons of grad work).

So, this month will be chock with outlining, character profiling, everything but the actual writing; that should balance out well, and I have Starbound keeping me busy too.

....Starbound, which is doing SO AWESOME now that I've finally figure out the cleric mechanics, and therefore, have figured out the entire world and the first three chapters of the damn story.  Love it when that happens.

See ya next time,

the Writing Raccoon

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