Hello all!

As I have made very clear in most of my posts, I am an aspiring novellist: I want to write stories, to create characters and to share my bizarre worldview in a palatable form. Thus, there is no bigger opportunity for me to do this than to partake in the grand literary escapade that is National Novel Writer’s Month: a November writing workout!

The aim of this intensive challenge is to produce, in some shape or form, fifty-thousand WORDS worth of narrative by midnight of November thirty – about 1700 words per day – which is roughly twice the length of a Sherlock Holmes Novel (Ref. Sign of Four is 43,309 words long). This is understandably a hell of a bit commitment to follow, not least if you’re working on one piece as if the traditional approach to the challenge. If you succeed at churning out 50,000 words, do not expect an actual reward aside from immensely improved writing motivation and an possibly an enhanced reputation. However, it doesn’t matter if you don’t exactly hit that word count: provided you’ve put the equivalent of thirty days work in, you should be proud of yourself! Any exercise will make a difference, after all.

Now, how am I going to be partaking in this?

I have come to realise that I’m probably not quite there when it comes to starting on a proper novel. Though I’ve still got my “Sophont Memories” scifi fantasy project on the side, I’ve noticed that I’m still lacking some experience with worldbuilding and scene coreography – my dialogue is still a little stiff and I need more of a drive to write. However, since november ALSO happens to be assignment month for me, I might not be able to engage the challenge quite as directly as intended – regardless of any deferrals I might get, university work shop be my priority.

Thus,I’m going to be commemorating it slightly differently. I will be working on some kind of seperate, more specific kind of project(s) over this period, up to about five/six short stories maximum…and that’s where the WordPress writing community might come in.

I am going to hold an election! (Dearie me)

The NaNoWriMo 2023 election – Over to you!

When it comes to writing novels, you cannot just write for yourself if you intend to make it public. Ill accommodating, highly personal writing is rarely a flaw among published works (bar some notorious examples) because many works bearing this mark never get through in the first place… unless they are self released. I too, obviously, don’t want to make my writing ridiculously egocentric and uninclusive to anyone who visits this blog, not least over the great November splurge. Thus, I need to conduct a bit of primary research.

For this event, I’m thinking about focusing on a specific central character, who I will build episodes and world about over the course of this period. This will either be one of four pre-existing characters I’ve used in works or a completely new one which I’ll build up from the etchwork over the course of the month. Whatever character is decided to be the most popular by public opinion – exempting my own as much as possible – will be chosen.

The vote will be conducted in the following way, adapted for ease’s sake: I will release short manifestos for each of the five choices (inc. new character) simultaneosly on Tuesday the 24th. Each manifesto will summarise the character, the sort of narrative genre that might accompany them and any other specifics. Now, listen up, this next bit is somewhat important – the candidate will be chosen by the number of likes they recieve. Please, try not to like the post if you’re not thinking of choosing that character above all others – stick to one choice, if you can, out of the five!

In case you might forget, I’ll have a little reminder at the bottom of each manifesto about this rule so you don’t inevitably end up liking all the posts: after all, you don’t have to enjoy everything I produce! I will be collecting the “vote” in Friday 27th. Now, say two characters are tied… what then? Weel, I’ll sort of repost these two candidates and get you to pick between them before the 29th, again via likes – if it happens AGAIN, I’ll just flip a coin. On the other hand, say everyone completely ignores the red text and likes every post equally or doesn’t yield any fornication for what I write – why, I’ll give it another day (28th) to settle, then just pick a choice at random if it doesn’t. Either way, I’ll fix something – don’t be pressured into voting if you don’t want to or don’t care.

Now, here’s a quick repeat of the candidates – this is just an overview to get you thinking about your choice. Here goes:

• Naerun – A young labourer, resident to a somewhat hostile forest world with predatory herbivores, an eldritch understory marsh and bizarre cultures.
• Dolninna – A general thought to be a saviour by her people who has made herself increasingly unpopular in her survival choices and has made a powerful enemy among the dead within her underground biosphere, where rivers glow and the sky above houses colossal demons.
• Neville Spring – An odd boy who has been granted even stranger employment by an occult antique store, where he meets many beguiling breeds of creature and customer, whilst struggling to maintain his humanity all the while.
• The sheep – Yes, a flock. Entails the lore and legend of the herdmind, telling of happening within clandestine clover fields and around abstract mountains where the great storm ram dwells.
• New character – I come up with something new and interesting. If you can be arsed to comment, you might be able to manipulate the results!

So, there’s your choice – Which of the five would you like me to write about? Take your time to choose your vote from the 23rd of october onwards (——> Using the like based metric <——).If you have a suicidal urge to partake in NaNoWriMo, consider signing up at the website – https://nanowrimo.org/ .

Whether or not you’re preparing to write yourself to death or simply to liquidise your cortex in social media battles, have a good weekend!