Happy November, friends! ‘Round these here parts, it’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which I am doing for the first time in five years. The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. (I’m at 19,000 as of yesterday.)
The idea behind Nano is that, instead of letting yourself get bogged down in worries about the quality of your writing, you focus on quantity, and, in theory, unleash your inner creativity that would never come out under normal circumstances.
I love Nano, but Nano is not always the right solution for where I currently am in my writing career. But when they do line up–why not go in, feet first, with all the reckless abandon I can manage?
The story I’m working on this year is one that I had a vague idea for that never gelled. So I stole it and stuck it in Hidden Worlds. Then, of course, after Hidden Worlds was published and released into the wild, the story gelled. About five years ago, I did a ton of research for the story and wrote the first chapter. And then I put it away, to be worked on when I got around to it.
Well, I’ve gotten around to it.
The story is a kind-of Odyssey-ish voyage across an ocean, focusing on themes of redemption, knowing and trusting yourself, and discovering your worth. Which is all lovely. Sounds like I know what I’m doing, doesn’t it?
But it also gives me leave to make a bunch of islands and populate it with whatever the heck I see fit to.
And, so I ask: why not dinosaurs?
Why not trolls, or giants?
Why not volcanos and hybrid animal people and talking horses?
(Okay. Probably not talking horses. It was weird when Jonathan Swift did it too.)
It’s early enough in the story that the ocean is still mostly a wide open place of possibility. So while I know I can’t hit all the island possibilities (and perhaps it is not good to dwell to heavily on what has come before), it doesn’t hurt to imagine what’s possible, both within the limits of the world I’ve built, and perhaps just a bit beyond it.
But I do think I can spare a dinosaur or two.
Is it Nano without them?
maybe that’s what my NaNovel is missing…hmm.