It’s been a while since I shared anything writing related. If you read my first post since I started blogging again, you already know that the end of 2019 through early this year, I’ve been in a real writing rut. Between US politics, the pandemic, and my own personal health issues (only related in part to the pandemic!) I just haven’t had the mental capacity to create via writing.
That’s not to say my characters haven’t been screaming at me, believe me, they have!
I’ve recently gotten my feet wet by pulling up the WIP I abandoned in 2019 and working on that again. I’m feeling good about where it’s going, and I’m hoping to have it ready to publish sometime in 2024. (No promises!)
But let’s talk NaNoWriMo. My first NaNoWriMo was 2009, I lost. In fact, I’ve lost 5 of my 6 attempts at NaNoWriMo! I don’t know about you guys, but November winds up being a very busy month!
The last (and only) time I “won” NaNo was 2013, with my YA vampire/witch novel that I never published. (Someday I hope to heavily rewrite/revise the book and bring it into the world as the first in a series. I even wrote a prequel, which I liked way better! So if nothing else, I’ll release that as a book on its own someday!)
Even with my many losses, I’ve used NaNo as an excuse to make progress on Peace in Flames (2016) and Something I’m Good At (2017), both of which have been published. Just because you don’t hit the 50k target, doesn’t mean you’re a loser, it just means you need more time to let the creativity out.
Which brings us to 2023. This is the year of Sol del Mar High book 2. The working title is You Belong With Me (because I’m a Swiftie and that song fits) but I know that sounds super possessive and I’m working on a new title, promise. 😉 This will be Mark’s book. If you read SIGA (my loving nickname for Something I’m Good At), you might remember Mark as Kane’s quiet but loyal BFF. I’m soooo excited to share Mark’s story with the world. This book will pick up soon after SIGA ended, so be prepared for love, surfing, and drama! And don’t worry, Kane, Summer, and Abigail will all be returning to help tell Mark’s story. (I’ll do my best to not let Kane steal the show!) You’ll also get to know Hannah, the quiet girl with more baggage than any high school student should have to endure.
It’s only October, which means I’m doing something I’m very bad at. I’m plotting! I normally go into my writing with a general idea of what will happen and a few big scenes, but that’s it. And then I get lost and jump to another project. (This is actually how I wrote Peace in Flames and Summer of Peace! I got lost in PiF so I jumped over to SoP, then I got stuck again and jumped back! In the end I had two novellas to release back to back, so that was good!)
I’ve dedicated at least an hour every Tuesday this month (while my daughter is in her dance class and I’m sitting in my car) to storyboarding scenes in Scrivener. I love that I can move the virtual notecards around if I decide that a scene should happen sooner or later. This is my first time using it in this way, and so far, I’m loving it! I currently have 23 scenes planned. I’m not sure if I’ll manage to pre-plot all of the scenes I need, but I have a solid foundation to get started.
So why start a new book for NaNo instead of continuing that previously mentioned WIP? Well, my WIP (tentatively called Windego Summer) is sitting at a little over 20k words and I don’t know that I have another 50k left of this story to tell! I may hop back over to this one if I hit a wall on Mark’s story though, only time will tell!
If you’re planning on participating in NaNo this year, leave a message below. And/Or I’d love to connect with you on NaNoWriMo.com – my user name is FaerieTears.
Here’s to a fruitful NaNoWriMo and for me finally releasing another book baby into the world sometime in 2024!