NaNoWriMo: Introducing the Stories Part 1

It’s NaNoWriMo pre-season and for those of you who don’t know what that is it stands for National Novel Writing Month, where the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. A huge feat in many ways.

I’m about to embark on my 9th NaNoWriMo and I’m excited because I’m going to dive back into my stories I’ve already started because I’m so not ready to start new project (and just for the side fact, I totally can, I never not have any ideas, I just need to temper them) so I’m revisiting them. I’m going to introduce them to you though. Because sometimes part of the fun is getting the characters out of my head and onto the page, so you’ll get to meet the head people who either torture my brain or entertain me.

But this is also not the rules of NaNo, so I’m a little bit of a NaNo rebel this year. Generally, the rule is you need to start a new project, but I have so many unfinished projects that I think this year I’m ok with breaking this rule.

If you’ve been on the fence about doing NaNo, let me just tell you this: Get off it and join already!

What I really love about NaNo is the community. Everyone bands together to get things going and while there, sometimes, can be a little bit of cattiness (I have experienced this quite a bit) it’s mostly fun getting together with a whole bunch of people who are ready and wanting to write…well most of the time.

Since moving to Melbourne I’ve only been to a few of the events because I seem to just not get to them and my social anxiety gets the better of me. But I did manage to get to the Night of Manuscript Madness last year and that was actually fun, I got a bit done but it was mostly people just chatting and trying not to fall asleep… it’s lucky that it I had a straight drive home.

This year, I’m going to attempt three projects this year. It’s going to be pretty interesting because one is still in first draft mode and was the focus of what I was doing last year, it currently sits at 112,000 odd words and is only three quarters of the way through. I thought I’d be finished with it at 100,000 words, which is what I standardly aim for in first drafts, sometimes they fall short but that’s ok. This one just seemed to keep growing as I was writing it. You might say it started to become a wild thing with a mind of its own. I guess it does though, especially as the plot shows up as I keep writing. It’s frustrating and interesting at the same time.

The second project is a second draft and is actually a novel I’m going to be self publishing next year, so I’ve been trying to do this book all year. I’ve been trying my hardest to flesh it out and as I do that, new things rock up to test me. It’s really interesting.

The third is the complete rewrite of my 2012 NaNoWriMo because that character completely fucked around with me and now I have to age up the story and lose basically all of the material I’ve used barring a little. So frustrating because my narrator is a stubborn and pigheaded werewolf who’s also a frustratingly rad guy when he’s not being a jerl.

And as I was writing this I realised that this post is going to be mammoth so I’m going to introduce you to the characters and the worlds over three blog posts. I’ll start with the order of what I’m working on first because it gives me a chance to actually get some of the ideas down and maybe I can actually be more prepared for NaNo and not leave it to the last minute.

First up are Hunter Wyatt and Lucy Ryder. I’ve had these characters with me since I was 14. They’re my best friends and sometimes my worst enemies, but that’s ok, they earned those positions because their voices have always been in the back of my head with just about every major thing that’s happened in my life. I also just need to preface this and tell you that I’m still working on how old they’ll be in the novel I’m writing, because in my first novel they’re all 19…this is waaay in the future and they’re no longer 19.

Their story is going to be known as SS because it takes me a long time to come with names and I’m feverishly possessive over them, so until it’s on a publisher’s roster it stays a secret, anyway!

SS is predominantly Hunter’s story and it’s roughly, give or take, about 10-12 years after the events of Faded Fragments which is the first of The Nexus Series. He’s a witch who suddenly goes on the run because he’s visited by Death with a message: He needs to succeed him as a horseman or he’s going to kill those whom he loves the most. Or better yet, he’ll make sure that no one can get to his loved ones. He goes on the run and while he does he meets a curious friend who helps get him back to Lucy safely, meanwhile Lucy is dealing with Hunter’s disappearance in her own way: she throws herself into studying the craft to find where he is.

He’s probably one of the two favourite male characters that live in my brain. He’s a firefighting witch who has to hide how he actually helps others when he gives them a little nudge aka heals them with his abilities. He seems to mostly do so without too much of a fuss, but I secretly think that his whole brigade know what he is and are up for having his back. Hunter is a crazy spontaneous but caring man, he’s always got the right reaction depending on the situation but it hasn’t always been that way. He is a bit of a hothead and can be known to show off when things are too much for him, but he’s very much a talk the person down then hit them, unless it comes to magic, then the answer is always magic.

Stats: Taurus, 6’2, brown hair – styled in an undercut sort of comb over thing, green eyes, broad shoulders, tattoo on his bicep, witch birthmark on his shoulder blade, daith, industrial and tragus piercings. Fit, so very fit, he has this half smile thing that dazzles women…

Abilities: Circle casting, glamour, word of law (people tend to not be able to lie to him and once he requests something he generally has to do it or the other will have to do it), healer, also a great anchor and guide

Family: Mum – world renown surgeon, Dad – award-winning architect (he uses magic to make it unique, which is explored in the story). He’s the youngest of four boys. His brothers are Rocky, Apollo and Menelaus. His mum has a bit of an obsession with myths…and names.

Background: Greek/Australian

She is the first character that I bonded with and maybe she’s the most like me (besides her BFF counter part Liliana) and she’s a book writing witch. I’m doing a bit of a naughty here and she magically became a writer as my drafts progressed because it’s what I wanted to be and didn’t think I’d actually persue it (rookie mistake here, I keep writing things I want in my life and then they magically manifest themselves…ha) she’s a New York Times Best Selling author with her first novel, which based loosely on what happened to her and her best friends, again which I’m a bit metafictiony here and making Lucy’s first novel, my first novel with some added twists to it to work with their world they’re in. She’s currently working on a novel in SS that is top secret…not even I know what it is but I have a feeling it has something to do with Travis. Another story for another time.

Stats: 5’5, petite, brown wavy hair, stormy grey eyes, strong. No tattoos, has a belly piercing, ear piercings – 4 in each and always wants more, strong – she has a blackbelt in karate

Abilities: Telekinetic, circle casting, empathy, house for an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, mind talking shiz, premonitions – it only works for those who aren’t close to her.

Family: Mum, Older sister Destiny, Twin brother – Devin. Dad – deceased

Background: Egyptian/Australian

The order of this story is hinky and as I’ve been reading the 112,000 words I already have I’m finding a lot of things that aren’t going to stick around and that’s fine, that’ what draft two is for but so far Lucy and Hunter have been through quite a bit, their engagement party gets crashed, they hold a benefit to lure out witch hunters and they’ve got some pretty heavy shit going on with their foes: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Yup. The Four fricken Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

These guys showed up as soon as I started writing and I didn’t have a plan for them to be in it. Hunter was supposed to go on the run from Witch Hunters and I had no idea why, but as I wrote that first scene (which actually happened last year with one of my old clients/friends) I knew something big was about to happen and the utterance of Death and a very fast red car…well I knew what was coming next and that was scarier really.

• It’s a dual narrated story, so every chapter I’m switching between Lucy and Hunter, which is actually a lot of fun, because they’re essentially the same person but in two different bodies, and that’s not to say that I’m writing the same character, I’m not. Lucy and Hunter react to situations in totally different manners and that’s what makes it half the fun.
• Magic is a crime in this world and while Hunter and Lucy are both practice witches, they keep it mostly under the radar.
• It’s set in Melbourne…only it’s a more liveable Melbourne, things aren’t so far away…and the city isn’t too much of a nightmare to actually drive in…basically I made it a little bit like a Melbourne-Adelaide hybrid, because it’s my story!
• Hunter is rich, Lucy is rich, but they’re bot incredibly humble and have been brought up in a way that makes them work for what they’ve got and their careers have been built on their own merits and not their last names.
• Mythological beings are real and there’s an army that are trained assassins and were trained by Karrept, the bad guy in book one, to take them out. Lucy’s twin brother is one of them.
• There no vampires in this book, I like reading about them…I hate writing about them.
• There are selkies, angels, werewolves and mummies though, and more…I’m still in the process of actually uncovering all of the species within the story.
• I already know who I’m killing in this book and I already mourn them.

I’m pretty sure, a lot of what I’ve already written is going to get shaved down, but it’s definitely fun to write.

Hopefully I can work on Part Two and introduce you to Travis Matthews and Milena Carrerar. You can be the judge of how much you like these two.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear about your project.