Yes, it's that time of the year again. The days are shortening, the temperature is dropping, and the amount of mails from the NaNoWriMo headquarter is getting almost unbearably high. November is almost upon us, and November means National Novel Writing Month.
And this year, as in any other year when it is humanly possible, I will be participating. And also this year, no trips to Iceland and (hopefully) no burglaries will stand in my way of winning (not that they held me back last year...).
I was thinking about becoming a NaNo rebel, and instead of starting a whole new novel from scratch, adding 50,000 words to the novel I wrote last year. However, that doesn't really feel right, partly because it is 'against the rules', and partly because it doesn't really generate the same amount of drive and energy to add on to something that already exists. So, in the end, I've decided to write something new all together.
Now I've been digging in my own NaNo archives (you can find all my author info on http://nanowrimo.org/participants/dromera/) and apparently this will be my seventh NaNo. I'm not really sure that is true, because I vaguely remember trying to write something in 2012 as well, but that attempt probably crashed and burned so quickly that I didn't even save it. Anyhow, six previous NaNo's, one of which (2008) I can't remember a single thing about, other than that I didn't make it. 2007 also failed, but at least I still have the actual file from that year, even if it is just plain text. All the other years, I did manage to write 50,000 words in a month's time, making my total number of NaNo words written around 205,000.
Other noticeable things: of the five years that I actually know the title, four of those titles were the name of the main character (Sylven, Erik, Suzanne, Johannes). Also, I have basically written fantasy in one form or another (often mixed with reality) every single year, except for last year, when the plot really took place in my own town and in our own world. All novels were written in Dutch, except for 2011. Finally, all of my novels have been of the 'serious' kind, except for the 2011 one, which was "Satire, Humor & Parody", according to the genre I picked (although in reality it really was fantasy). All in all, 2011 is the odd one out. Longest title, different genre, and written in English. So this year, that's exactly what I'm going to do again.
I've picked a title that should give something away of how serious you're to take this (The Egg of Col Umbus), and written a short synopsis: Four people all embark upon the same quest: obtaining the Egg of Col Umbus. I've got the basic motivations for all of those four characters, although otherwise I have no idea about who they are. I have a very basic idea of the plot, but I think it will go in a wildly different direction when I actually start writing. This is going to be one of those novels that will happen upon me, and we'll see how it turns out.
The only thing I'm still not sure about is the language I'm going to write in. Funny stuff doesn't really work in Dutch, in my experience, so I'm leaning towards English. However, I haven't really written any long texts in English for about three years now (not counting this blog), so I may have some difficulty there. But, English somehow 'feels' better, so I think I'm going to stick with that. And who knows, I may change my mind halfway through the novel, and nobody is really going to care. 50,000 words is 50,000 words, after all.
I will keep you all updated on my progress once the writing begins, and hopefully the whole thing will go as smoothly as last year. Just writing that down makes me laugh with my own sheer naivite, but hey, who knows? I might actually be getting good at this!
