November starts tomorrow and, with it, so does National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as its affectionately called).
I did Camp NaNo back in July. Camps are similar to November’s NaNoWriMo, with the idea that you’re completing a 50,000 word novel over the course of the month. The goal of camp was to create the sequel for Hat Trick. When July was done I was 10,000 words short. I did, however, have some great material.
As I’ve considered what I wrote three months ago, it looks like there’s three sequels in those 40,000 words. One of the things that tripped me up, which is probably related to my pantser style of writing, is that I had too much going on for one book. There were three fairly distinct plots that did not want to be tied together.
So, rather than working on a single story for November, I’m going to work on these three sequels. The goal is the same as always: to generate at least 50,000 words by the end of the month. I’ve done it before (long time readers here may recall that Hat Trick was initially written during NaNo 2006) and I can do it this time too.
I’m not going to say too much yet about the sequel ideas except that Simon and Alex will be in college. The first has them starting their sophomore year, and I think they’ll move up a year in each of the other stories. Some of their friends from Hat Trick will make appearances and there’ll be quite a few new people to meet too. The planned second and third installments require some research, which I’ve already started, to make sure I tell the stories right.
My plan is to get the first new book out to the publisher by the end of this year and get the other two completed in 2014 as soon as possible. The good news is the publisher, JMS Books, has said they like my proposed ideas. That doesn’t mean the books are accepted, but at least the ideas got positive feedback. Now I just have to make them compelling enough to get the contracts.
You can keep track of my word count progress during the month by checking out the counter that’s in the sidebar on the Jeff Adams Writes pages. And, of course, I’ll post more about how the writing is going as the month unfolds.
Happy NaNo everyone!
Good luck with it all x