It's November again - NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 1

I'm not yet finished writing for the day, so I'll update my wordcount later.

I'm a pretty experienced NaNo Writer now - this will be my fourth NaNo challenge, and is my fifth 50k-in-a-month Challenge. I have completed the challenge three out of four times - and the time I failed was because I ran out of words at 36k and didn't feel like writing anything else. That was back in 2002, I believe.

Summary of NaNo's past:

2002: Long Odds
Wordcount: 26, 599
Status: Completed before attaining 50,000
Plot: $25 commission on Furbid for Moldred. He asked for a space opera, featuring his characters. Contains some sex scenes. I no longer do story commissions.

2003: Scavengers of the Deadlands
Wordcount: 97,001 words (not all of which were written during NaNo)
Status: Incomplete
Plot: Furries, A Magical university, a desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland, air ships...
Am thinking of reworking this as a Furry Steampunk story and finishing it. I DO remember where it was headed. And having re-read it recently - it's actually fairly decent.




Between 2004-2008 I was going to undergo NaNo again, to rework "Quest for Lemuria" but I either never got onto it, or never wrote more than a tiny amount, because I can't even seem to find which of the variants it actually was.

2008: Midsummer Knight's Quest (non-NaNo)
Wordcount: 75, 175
Status: Complete, requires final edit
Plot: A goblin finds an egg, which hatches out and the chick imprints on him. He then befriends a brownie and goes on to help save their valley home from an evil developer.
This one is also not half bad, and definitely deserves that final polish and publish. Had to change the species of the bird however - which means some of the art needs to be redrawn.




2010: Aroha's Grand Adventure
Wordcount: 54,852 (includes Appendix)
Status: Complete and published
Plot: A weka chick with a love of human food is kidnapped by a small child and transported from Greymouth to Christchurch. Upon arriving, she escapes and makes her way home - having many adventures upon the way, making some new friends (and some fiends as well) and eating everything and anything.
I loved writing this book - Aroha was just such a character, the story almost seemed to write itself. I love you Aroha!


2011: Lemurs: A Saga (part 1) (SocNoc - June Challenge)
Wordcount: 80, 245
Status: complete, requires edit (also, part two not yet written)
Plot: The previous ruler of Madigaska has died, leaving no legitimate heirs. Thus an Ursurper Queen has claimed the throne. However, an illegitimate heir remains - and now must run for her life, and hide to survive, for the Ursurper will not relinquish her throne easily.
Epic fantasy, stereotypical plot, but all the characters are lemurs and there is no magic.

Thus, for NaNo, I shall be continuing Aurelia's story with:

2011: Lemurs: A Saga (part 2)
When we left Aurelia, she had finally found sanctuary in the Stone Forest, with the mysterious "Sisters" (the Karazana). Separated from all those she knows and loves, she is about to face her biggest challenge yet - as the Queen's grasp on the land intensifies and her reigh grows brutal and absolute. Can one small lemur save her kingdom?

Wordcount: 3,087
Total Wordcount:3, 087
Percentage: 6.2%

Here are some of my tips today on writing an epic novel:
~ have a list of character names; who they are and what they do - and in this case, species.
~ also a list of place names is very useful, particularly if they are foreign and complicated
~ keep a timeline - I've just made one of mine and found a few tweaks I need to make