Dark Horizons

Just recently, I took advantage of one of the rewards of winning NaNoWriMo last November - 5 free copies of my book from Createspace. Seeing how I never actually ordered any paperbacks of Endangered Memories when I revamped the cover design at the beginning of the year, I went ahead and ordered five copies and now display them magnificently on my desk. I found though, that like many of my books, I will sometimes pick it up and start reading it. And lately, by reading a lot of my older works, I can feel my passion for writing returning in full bloom.

This isn't to say that my passion for writing ever went away. It just got a bit buried under the monumental task of moving here to the Bay Area, getting acclimated in a new place, and trying to get back into the groove of online marketing and whatnot.

With that being said, I'm also happy to say that I'm back at work on Dark Horizons, thanks to Camp NaNoWriMo. I have a lot of great ideas for this installment in my Expired Reality series, and I hope to write them all out and get this manuscript done as soon as I possibly can, seeing how it's been on hiatus for the last few years. Starting as a nearly 60,000 word draft, Dark Horizons will pick up where Lost Birth left off and continue the story of David Corbin and both his search for the Codex of Ra'f and his battle against the emergent Legion.

Camp NaNoWriMo Changes

With yesterday being the official start of Camp NaNoWriMo, I took some time to sit down, open up my old NaNoWriMo draft of Dark Horizons, and scanned the book to see how badly this thing would need to be overhauled and rewritten for Camp NaNoWriMo.

Boy was I surprised.

This manuscript is an absolute gem that's apparently been sitting in a digital folder since August of 2011 - the same month my son was born. After perusing the nearly 60,000 word manuscript, I've come to the conclusion that my Camp NaNoWriMo goal needs to be changed. This draft of Dark Horizons has a nice edgy feel to it - one of the main reasons I was going to rewrite it to match it up with the feel of my Black Earth series. It also follows most of the plot lines I was going to write the new manuscript in. And I can't ignore the fact that already 56,888 words are written in this thing.

The beautiful thing about Camp NaNoWriMo is that it can be used for edits, revisions, or alternate word counts. Unlike its big brother, NaNoWriMo (every November), Camp NaNoWriMo allows you to set your word goal to one other than the typical 50,000. So, I'm going to take advantage of this and set my goal to 43,112 words. Seeing how my manuscript draft is already 56,888, this would bring the draft to 100,000 words by the time July is over with - the perfect size for a first draft.

Today and tomorrow I'm going to be spending some time chiseling out an outline for the manuscript, and then after the holiday weekend, I'll be starting work on the 43,112 words I need to complete before the end of July.

Of Dreams and Faith and Camp NaNoWriMo!

In recent posts, I've been making vague mentions at a non-fiction project I've started. I'm happy to announce that I have an official title for my project: Of Dreams and Faith. As some of you know, I have another blog that I run by the same name. Both the blog and the book detail the journey of faith that God has taken me (and my family) on in my lifetime, but the book will go into greater detail and offer more of an autobiographical look at things, while the blog continues to chronicle our move to the Bay Area and the church plant - Canvas - that we are a part of.

I am hoping to finish this project in the next couple of months, and then move full speed into my Expired Reality series. Which brings me to my next newsworthy topic...

I've decided to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo. I have been doing the basic, November-based NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the last eight years, and I just found out about Camp NaNoWriMo, which is basically a July version of NaNoWriMo, only you can set the word-count goal yourself instead of having to abide by the 50,000 words. I will be setting my goal at 50,000 to start off with though, and then if I get to the middle of the month and have surpassed that, I will reevaluate my word-count goal.

The novel I'll be working on for Camp NaNoWriMo is my third Expired Reality novel, Dark Horizons. I had already done a draft of this novel for one of my November NaNoWriMo contests, but this manuscript needs a complete overall from beginning to end, now that I decided to incorporate my Black Earth writing style into the series.

If there are any of you wanting to keep up on my word-count progress or participate in Camp NaNoWriMo yourself (it starts July 1st), here is a link to my profile there - DavidCorbin.