Camp NaNoWriMo 2014

Last year was the first year I ventured into the literary adventure known as Camp NaNoWriMo. I didn't know much about it, even though I have participated in the original NaNoWriMo for the past nine years.

While NaNoWriMo forces you to adhere to a 50,000 word count goal for the month of November with a strict advisement against editing, Camp NaNoWriMo is more flexible, allowing you to create your own word count goal and use the month of April or July to polish an existing project - possibly the novel you crafted in the previous November.

I wasn't going to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this year except for the fact that I am waaaaaay behind on completing my short story series, The LZR Project, which I wrote the bare bones for in November during NaNoWriMo. I have 30+ episodes that have to be written and edited and ready to go by the end of April, and I only have the drafts written for 22 of those episodes. That being said, I am pretty proud as to how far I got in the project during November, but now I have to pull up my bootstraps, engage the warp drive on my coffee maker, and get ready to carve through some late nights in an effort to get these episodes finished.

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.

NaNoWriMo Update

Okay, so it's Day 13 of National Novel Writing Month and I'm actually a day behind in my word count. Instead of doing NaNo yesterday, I spent the evening watching The Avengers with my wife. Decent movie, but overhyped, I think. I didn't really care for any of the Marvel movies leading up to it - except the first Iron Man - but The Avengers turned out to be worth seeing at least once for me. I have more interest in the Batman movies and in the possibility of a Justice League movie.

Anyway, I'm at 20,008 words so far in NaNo. Almost halfway there. As I've mentioned in another post, I ended up changing my NaNo project a few days into the month. Even though I spent each and every day in October doing activities via the Writing.com NaNo Prep Challenge to get ready for NaNo, I just couldn't bring myself to try and squeeze blood from a rock. The original NaNo idea I had - Black Earth: Spectrum - just wasn't cutting it for me. The characters were hollow, the plot contrived, and trying to write through it was agony.

Instead, I've been working on a novella that takes place between my Black Earth and Expired Reality series, and will serve as a bridge between the two to sum up how one leads into the other. I don't want to give away many details right now because the final book in the Black Earth series - Black Earth: Exodus - will be released next month, and to give away what's going on in my NaNo novel right now will spoil much of what happens in Exodus.

NaNoWriMo Year 7 - 2011

Last year was by far my favorite - and most intense - NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) year to date. Because I had completed the six years of NaNo prior, I decided to up the ante and do two complete 50,000 word novel manuscripts, so 100,000 words.

The two novels I did that year were Black Earth: Dark Masquerade, and Black Earth: Bridge to Anaisha - the third and fourth novels in my Black Earth series. Dark Masquerade was published a few months ago, and Bridge to Anaisha will be released (hopefully) next month.

I set Skyrim as my motivation for completing 100,000 words that year. I figured I would either get the game as a Christmas gift or get it via other means, and so I set myself up to be able to play it for a couple days once I did complete NaNo and receive the game, which I did. I actually had this as my desktop wallpaper that year, envisioning my NaNo goal as the slain dragon. What made it even better is the whole Nord getup actually matched the viking theme that NaNo has been encompassing the past few years now.

It was an epic year, and to top it off, I managed to complete the 100,000 (100,084 to be exact) word goal in only 16 days!

NaNoWriMo Year 6 - 2010

The sixth year I did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I attempted to venture away from the characters and storyline of both my Black Earth and Expired Reality series and write a standalone novel that could be included as canon in the Black Earth/Expired Reality universe, but give fans a completely different reading experience.

Eternal Midnight was the name of the project, and it starred a protagonist named Sage who resided in Midnight City - a location in Anaisha wrapped completely in darkness and run by a madman known as Top Hat. Midnight City was flooded with darkness long before the story starts, and now insane, bloodthirsty citizens reside within the city's many otherwise vacant buildings. They are considered something akin to zombies, and Sage's intentions are to find a cure for their disease. Eventually, Sage's adventure has her meeting up with other characters, such as Frost - a young scavenger girl, and Clinker, a young mechanic - and all of them work together to put an end to Midnight City's perpetual darkness.

Eternal Midnight will eventually see the light of day. I really liked the concept of urban survival in a post-apocalyptic city environment, and Top Hat - the crazed king of Midnight City - simply has to be explored more.

That year, I finished NaNo 7 days early with a 50,100 word count.

NaNoWriMo Year 5 - 2009

My fifth year doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) had me penning the drafts of two different novellas, neither of which have seen the light of day. Yet. They will be polished and published once the Expired Reality series gets up and running again after the Black Earth series comes to a close this winter.

Expired Reality: The Dark Past was split into two parts, each of which told a 25,000 word backstory to Veronica Amorou and Turquoise - both protagonists from my young adult series.

Veronica's story went into detail as to how she met Simper Creed and was trained to use her powers to manipulate rhodenine - a gift of hers that is revealed in the first novel in the series, Endangered Memories.

The second half of the manuscript gave background to Turquoise, a Wedge special agent in my series, and detailed how her powers revealed themselves once she hit puberty, how she was welcomed into the Wedge organization, and also gives a bit of story regarding her parents and her past as an adolescent. 

That year I ended up finishing the NaNoWriMo challenge with 50,132 words, and only finished a day ahead of schedule.

NaNoWriMo Year 4 - 2008

The fourth year I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I crafted the draft to the second novel in my Black Earth series - The Broken Daisy. This was also the year I finished NaNo in only 21 days. Ironically enough, The Broken Daisy has become my longest fiction piece to date - the finished book comes in at over 164,000 words - and is the longest volume in the Black Earth series.

2008 was also one of my favorite years when it came to NaNo's theme. The viking ship was really nice and a step up from previous years' icons, and this was also the same year the viking helmet was incorporated into NaNoWriMo's logo - a great symbol for the challenge that NaNoWriMo offers up each year.

I found out that year too that it's a bit easier accomplishing NaNo when you have source material already written. The Broken Daisy is the second book in my Black Earth series. So in essence, most of the characters were already introduced in End of the Innocence - the first book in the series - as were most of the plot elements. Writing The Broken Daisy was easier because I already sort of knew where the series was going and I knew what all the characters were going to end up doing. For the most part.

My NaNo manuscript at the end of that year's competition came to 50,111 words. That means when I finally (self) published The Broken Daisy, it has more than tripled in size from its NaNo origins.

NaNoWriMo Year 3 - 2007

The third year in a row that I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) brought about The Expired Reality Anthology Volume 1. This was meant to be a collection of short stories that took place in my young adult series, Expired Reality. But The Expired Reality Anthology has proved to be so much more than just a short story anthology.

For starters, one of the stories - Black Earth - sparked off my entire Black Earth novel series. When NaNo was over with that year, I took another look at Black Earth and I realized there was enough material to make an entire series. The final book in this series is due out this Winter.

Another story found in the collection - Eden's Folly - introduced Eden Ambersay, a character who will be appearing in the Expired Reality series in the near future. Eden is a female archaeologist on the hunt for the shards of an ancient sword that can save humanity, and is also in the midst of performing experiments on Legion.

Yet another story in the collection - Parallel Dance - told of the dance that David and Carrie (from the Expired Reality series) attended in David's flashbacks in Endangered Memories, but from the point of view of an entirely new set of characters - one of which actually has connections to Eden Ambersay. Parallel Dance has been renamed Parallel Extreme (for the moment) and is planned to be released as a novella (or possibly a short story series) in the near future.

Another nugget of fictional shenanigan that took place in The Expired Reality Anthology was a scene I ended up writing that details the death of Carrie Green. Now, I'm revealing this not to confirm whether or not Carrie will die in the Expired Reality series, but to point out what I felt compelled to write for NaNo that year. The scene takes place in an abandoned hospital and Carrie's body is wasting away while her soul is kept within a necklace David Corbin wears. Not sure how much of that - if any - will make it into the Expired Reality series as canon. Time will tell, though.

It worth mentioning that this was the year I finished NaNo in 9 days. The Expired Reality Anthology came to 50,108 words, contained some great starting points to other writing projects, and was finished - at least the NaNo version - in only 9 days. I believe that was the year I was working two jobs as well.

Just goes to show that anyone can do NaNo.

NaNoWriMo Year 2 - 2006

The second year of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) found me penning the fourth book in my young adult series, Expired Reality. This manuscript was tentatively titled Hidden Sanctuary, yet almost none of the story has seen the light of day. One reason for this is that the third book in the Expired Reality series (talked about a bit in yesterday's NaNo post) hasn't been finished/published yet. The other reason that Hidden Sanctuary hasn't wound up in book format yet is because of the fact that the story doesn't coincide with where the rewrites of Books 1 and 2 in the series venture.

Most of Hidden Sanctuary takes place within Carrie Green's memories. Carrie is the main protagonist's love interest in my young adult series, and at the time of penning Hidden Sanctuary, Carrie had fallen comatose due to Legion possessing her mind. At least half of the novel is dedicated to Carrie's journey through her own spirit where she battles her inner demons and overcomes many of her darkest memories in order to purge herself of Legion's presence.

The concept was something new I decided to try out, and I may very well use some of the manuscript in upcoming novels in the series, but for the most part, it was a NaNo novel that may never see the light of day. Hidden Sanctuary won me the NaNoWriMo challenge in 2006 with a total word count of 50,135.

NaNoWriMo Year 1 - 2005

Most people don't know what I mean when I say NaNoWriMo. Sounds like I'm greeting people who've watched Mork and Mindy in the past, but what it stands for is National Novel Writing Month. Each November, thousands of people from around the world participate in a challenge to write out 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. I have done this for the past 7 years now (2012 will be my 8th) and have succeeded each year.

I figured I'd do a little countdown to NaNo by giving a little bit of info on each year I participated.

My first year of NaNo was the craziest. My wife and I had just gotten married June 30th of that year, and I was still working in a typical 9-5 job as opposed to writing full time like I do now. I felt insane and a little messed up in the head to attempt to write 50,000 words in a month, but I went for it not really sure what to expect. My project that year was Expired Reality: Betrayal in Crystal City - the third novel in my young adult series. Betrayal in Crystal City has yet to be published (it is the next project on my docket after this year's NaNo novel), and it has gone through many revisions since its initial write-up. In fact, the name has changed now to Crystal City, but I'm almost pretty sure that will change before the book is officially published.

That year, I remember spreading out my NaNo writing according to the traditional formula: 50,000 words / 30 days in November = 1666.666666666667 words per day. If I remember right, I forgot to factor in that I don't write or do any type of work on Sundays, and I forgot to factor in days when we had extra plans in the evenings, like dinner with friends or date nights. It was a challenge that first year, but victory tasted sweet when I was able to print out my winner's certificate at the end of the month. My final word count at the end of that November was 50,094.

October Update

So, for the past couple weeks, I've been working on a number of different projects, all of which have been taking up the majority of my 'work' time so I haven't had too much time to network socially. My plan is to get a lot of these things off my plate in the next week so I can get back into the swing of things and start getting more activity rolling in my social networking and on The Crossover Alliance community.

First, I've been completing edits to and reading through Black Earth: Bridge to Anaisha - the fourth and final full-length novel in my Black Earth series. My hope is to release the book next month. This weekend my wife and I will be working on some of the cover design. And, there's a small chance I may change the name of the novel - not sure about that yet, but I'm definitely giving it some serious thought for reasons I may get into if I do decide to change it.

I've also been tinkering with the design of my website and attempting to clean it up a bit, make the Compendium entries a little easier to read and just make it easier to see a lot of my content at a glance. The new and improved site should be up next week - along with Heather Rhodes' profile, which I wanted to put up this week but couldn't because of the design delay.

In the world of writing, I've been working on the daily NaNo Prep activities over at Writing.com to get myself prepped for a November full of writing for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

I also have a new email newsletter to go out, which will match the design of the improved website. The newsletter should be going out toward the end of next week.

Next week I plan to do a small series of posts on the 7 years I've done NaNoWriMo, with a spotlight on each year's novel that I worked on with some details as to the future of those projects - the ones that haven't already become published novels.

All in all, October has been hecka' busy, but productive. Have a great weekend everyone!

Blog Post Series Recap

For those of you just joining my blog, I thought it might be a good idea to give you a recap of the posts in my currently running series.

Right now I have a series running that takes a deeper look at some of the characters of my Black Earth series. So far we've explored:

Cynthia Ruin (Blog Post) (Compendium Entry)
Alpha 1 (Blog Post) (Compendium Entry)
Daisy Pierce (Blog Post) (Compendium Entry)
Pearl (Blog Post) (Compendium Entry)

I have another series running parallel to the Character Spotlight series which takes a look at the different themes found within my Black Earth series and the ways these themes can be used in Christian fiction:

Sexual Content (Blog Post)
Violence (Blog Post)
Faith (Blog Post)
Inherited Religion (Blog Post)

And I have another series running in between all of this that explores the self-publishing side of things, starting with the love and task of writing:

The Right to Write (Blog Post)
NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month (Blog Post)

Later this week we'll take a look at Ryan Anderson from my Black Earth series and explore the theme of betrayal in Christian fiction.

7 Years of NaNoWriMo

A little while ago, I mentioned that I wanted to start another post series in regards to self-publishing, both to show the process that I go through to write/self-publishing/market my books, but also to hopefully help other self-publishing authors along the way. Last week I gave a glimpse at my love for Julia Cameron's, The Right to Write.

This week, I want to bring attention to a great writing challenge that has really helped me bust out some projects over the years. National Novel Writing Month – or NaNoWriMo for short – takes place each November, and during that month, contestants have to write a 50,000 word manuscript. The prize? Well, you’ll have a nice heavy draft in your hands from which to build a great novel upon. You also get to download and print a nifty certificate, and you’ll be titled as a winner in NaNoWriMo history, which will follow you all your years of NaNoWriMo writing.

I have completed NaNoWriMo the last seven years, and from it have come every novel in my Black Earth series, some side projects I have yet to reveal, and drafts for some novels in my young adult series – Expired Reality. It’s an exhilarating feeling blowing through 50,000 words in 30 days (although I’ve been known to finish in as little as 9 days) without any regard for editing. What comes out of the experience is a raw manuscript which acts as a superb groundwork to craft a well-polished novel off of.

For those interested in National Novel Writing Month, head over to their official website for all the details. On the website, you’ll find groups that meet locally in your area during the challenge and host write-ins, competitions, and other fun events. I will be participating again this year, although I’m not sure what my project will be yet.

Black Earth and the Genre That Almost Wasn't

I’ve been frustrated lately. Mostly with myself than with anything else.

See, I’ve been writing since 1992. I’ve been self-publishing since at least 2004. And I’ve been working on the Black Earth series since 2007, when it began as a short story in an anthology I wrote for National Novel Writing Month that November.

My aim with the Black Earth series was to tell a story about the world falling into darkness, with the main focus being on a few major characters who were attempting to navigate through this darkness by relying on their relationship with God. That lonely little short story – which was originally created under the umbrella of my young adult series, Expired Reality – quickly became the baseline for an entire series of its own: Black Earth.

Black Earth: End of the Innocence – the first novel in the series – was the most challenging manuscript I have ever penned. Why? Because it contained content in it that I knew would be frowned on by friends and family, fellow Christians, probably even my church. But I felt led to write the story found within the pages of End of the Innocence, a story filled with rape, cursing, sexual promiscuity, aliens, superpowers, violence, demons, witches, time travel, and other realities.

Needless to say, the novel was completely out of my comfort zone. In fact, it broke the very foundation of the shelter I had been living within my whole life.

But after I wrote the story, after a great friend (and mentor) of mine edited it, after I formatted it and placed it between beautiful cover art my wife created, I realized what I had done – I had created a hybrid of sorts. Edgy Christian Speculative Fiction. I came up with that genre title because I have no other way to describe what I write. Black Earth is a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, a dash of horror, all encompassing themes of redemption, forgiveness, revenge, and betrayal.

At first I made the mistake of trying to hide Black Earth under the science fiction/fantasy genre. I failed because reviewers started pointing out that Black Earth had Christian themes and that it should be placed under the Christian Fiction umbrella.  The book also got lost in the massive genre of science fiction/fantasy, buried underneath the likes of Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Game of Thrones series.

So where did it belong? Where could Black Earth call home?

In all honesty, I dreaded carrying Black Earth under the Christian Fiction banner. Quite a bit of Christian Fiction – and I stress quite a bit, not all – contains watered down stories that encompass 'clever' sermons about Jesus and how to live a ‘proper’ life. Most Christian Fiction ends on a high note, and not much of it explores ‘real’ life. Much Christian Fiction avoids the dark and gritty side of life. Prostitutes, drug addiction, the inner struggles of sex addicts, the moral dilemmas one faces in high school. Even science fiction/fantasy elements are frowned upon most of the time, including extraterrestrial life, time travel, magic and witches.

This dilemma I faced forced me to really think about what umbrella my work, especially Black Earth, fell under. I didn’t want to enter the Christian Fiction scene with my science fiction/fantasy/horror novel that was filled with rape, violence and cursing. I would be ostracized. And I didn’t want to continue skating through the swamp of science fiction/fantasy, hoping reviewers wouldn’t have issue with the fact that my stories contained Christian themes.

And that’s when it hit me. I’m a self-published author. I’m in control of my marketing efforts and the genre I want to place myself in. I did some research and found that not many authors were attempting to craft the type of genre I had concocted with my Black Earth series. That isn’t to say there weren’t some trying, but with it being such a narrow market, they were getting lost in the shuffle or were giving up because they were being opposed at every angle.

Unfortunately, since creating the banner of Edgy Christian Speculative Fiction, I haven’t really pushed myself out there with it. I haven’t tried hard enough to bring attention to this unique genre, or to get my own face as the author of these books into the public spotlight. When it comes to marketing and promotion, my first instinct is to go extreme introvert and open the door, throw my books on the lawn and shut the door in hopes someone will serendipitously stumble upon my fiction. This is a horrible way to try and reach readers.

Interestingly enough, most of the reviews for the books in my Black Earth series have been positive. There are non-Christians who love the books for their stories, characters and themes. Some have even commented that even though they recognize Christian themes within the novels, they don’t feel like they are being preached to when they read them. Some readers from the Christian camp praise my stories for crossing the line that was mysteriously drawn in the sand eons ago and creating ‘real’ characters who are forced to face a dark and (nearly) hopeless reality. It seems I have written something they haven’t been able to find or have had a hard time finding – edgy Christian fiction.

I know that I have something here. Something fresh. Something unique. Something that could be big, if I put the time and effort behind it. It’s akin to rolling a boulder up a snow-packed hill, but it can be done. And I’ll do it – with God’s help of course. ;)

Get ready, folks. I’ve been working hard the last couple days sketching out a battle plan to bring more attention to work of this caliber. In the very near future, I will be starting some blog post series here that will take time to explore many of the characters and themes found in my Black Earth series. I’ll reveal why certain themes are present in the series, and what they mean for the Christian/non-Christian community. I’m going to be more vocal about edgy Christian fiction and the need for this type of work in the art community on Facebook, Twitter,  and some other avenues. And I may even start a Facebook group in the near future for those who are eager to support and get underneath this intriguing umbrella of mishmashed goodness.

There are many edgy characters and themes present in my Black Earth series and I plan on drawing most if not all of them out. Not to sound too clique, but the Bible didn’t hold back when it came time to discuss many – if not all – of the dark sides of humanity. That’s not to say I’m going to get too crazy, but I think it’s time themes like redemption and self-destruction are explored in an open arena instead of being kept to Sunday sermons or salacious novels.

I have a little more info on what the term Edgy Christian Speculative Fiction actually encompasses, at least to me, at my website – davidnalderman.com – just in case you’re curious or you want to pass the word along to your friends and family. And if you want updates on the projects that I currently have in the works – such as book releases, website updates, and other goodies, you can subscribe to my free monthly email newsletter.

For the time being, stay tuned to this blog and get ready for some serious discussion to spark up in the coming weeks.

Punch It, Chewie!

I don't have much to blog about today, only because I'm closing in on the deadline to turn my current manuscript in to my editor. It has to be in her email inbox March 15th - next week - and I still have a TON of work to do on it. The good thing is, I really believe I can reach my goal, but it's probably going to involve some all-nighters this week. And that's okay, because it will be worth it at the end.

Once I hand Black Earth: Dark Masquerade off to my editor, I will be starting on Black Earth: Bridge to Eternity (tentative title), the fourth - and final - volume in my Black Earth series, immediately. This is because the deadline for that book is May 15th, leaving me only two months to transform a NaNoWriMo draft into an award-winning, bestselling ending to an epic series.

Anyway, I'm off to brew some more coffee, down some more sugar cookies, and see how fast I can make the Kessel run. I'll still be posting an excerpt from my draft work on Dark Masquerade this Wednesday, so keep your eyes peeled!

Thanksgiving and the End of Nano

Well, I managed to finish my 100,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo on the 16th of this month. That's double the word count challenge (50,000 words) in half the time! And I have two brand new drafts under my belt, both of which I'll be working hard on once December comes around.

On that note, I will be offline until after Thanksgiving weekend. I want to wish all my followers/readers a great Thanksgiving. I am very grateful for all of you who have followed my path through self-publishing and my life as a writer, and I look forward to sharing some great projects with you as we wrap up 2011 and enter a brand new year.

Head over to Smashwords and grab a free copy of my novella, Picture Perfect, for your Kindle, Nook, etc. Just use coupon code - JZ47S - when checking out. Just a little way of me saying thanks for following this humble writer's blog.

40,000 and Still Going Strong

Last night I hit 40,000 words in my NaNoWriMo novel. I can't believe I'm burning through this thing this fast, especially since most of my weekdays are taken up watching my two month old son. Regardless, I'm still heading strong toward my 100,000 word goal for the month. And after I blow out another 10,000 words, I'm going to flip over to the second book I'm working on in my November writing craze.

All I have to say is I wish every month was this productive!

Double the Nano, Double the Insanity

Well, we're just hours away from November 1st and the start of NanoWrimo - or National Novel Writing Month for those of you who think I'm speaking an alien language. I wait all year for this wonderful writing season and this year has been no exception. I am squeeing - whatever that means - with excitement! (Like the Nano pumpkin carving I did this year?)

Last year I dived into NanoWrimo with a brand new project - a new novel - that sort of fell into my other series but didn't. I wanted a fresh slate to work from and so I embarked on writing something completely from scratch - new world, new characters, new setting. It made Nano a pain for me. I struggled through the November of 2010 wondering if it would be the first year I failed Nano. I'm happy to say I made it through to the 50,000 word goal, but this year I decided to take a different approach.

To kill two - or three - birds with one stone, I decided to do two Nano books this year - the last two books in my Black Earth series, closing the series off so I can then devote all my time and attention to the Expired Reality series. That's a goal of 100,000 words by the end of the month. A lofty achievement, considering I watch our newborn son full time during the day. Regardless, I will reach the finish line and in the end will have two more novels to add to my repertoire.

Time to start the caffeine-crazed, sleep-deprived, out of control, totally insane month of writing! To all of you other NanoWrimos out there, good luck and great writing. ;) Find me at http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/davidcorbin.
 

NanoWrimo 2011

We're almost halfway through October, meaning it's almost time for NanoWrimo - or National Novel Writing Month! Each year, the worldwide contest requires those daring enough to complete a 50,000 word draft in 30 days. There's no monetary reward - just a certificate you get to print out and hang on your wall, and most importantly, the rough draft to a complete novel.

I've participated in NanoWrimo for the last 6 years now, completing it each year. During most years I end up completing the 50,000 word count by the middle of the month, so this year I decided to turn things up a notch. I'm going to use NanoWrimo to complete the final two books in my Black Earth series. So by the end of the challenge this year, I will have a pair of 50,000 word manuscripts ready to be embellished, polished, and sent off to my editor.

If you're participating, or you just want to check out my progress in November, head over to my profile at the official NanoWrimo website and friend me. ;)