Some of you might be thinking: What does this have to do with knitting and fleece and lambdas? Isn't that what this blog is about? (Except the lambdas)
In a narrow sense, it doesn't. In a much broader sense, it is yet another way to keep me thinking, another way to come up with ideas.
I first heard of NaNoWriMo the fall of my senior year of high school (2009) although I didn't participate. In the fall of my freshmen year (2010) I came up with an idea to write a steam-punk style book. I came up with a map that day in Intro Economics and started coming up with characters and a working magic system.
(If you don't know what steampunk is, imagine a stylized version of the later Victorian era (circa 1860 - 1900) where steam-powered airships rule the skies, mad scientists create monsters and clockwork-powered robots run amok. It's a fascinating community - especially steampunk inspired fashion.)
For a quick overview
In October I found this site: 30 Days of World Building
In that month I made outlines of my story: what the plots was and where it was going. And on November 1, I started.
I did it, too. I wrote 50,000 words in my novel that month and I finished it over Thanksgiving break. I was an author!
The book was pretty bad, I do admit. I knew that when I got to November 15th and realized I was over halfway done with the plot. I was inventing characters out of the blue when I needed someone to be there. I added scenes to other scenes to make the transition easier. I did too much exposition so that my world would come across to the reader.
And that was fine. NaNoWriMo prides itself on quantity, not quality. The point is to get the words on a page. Polishing and sharpening come later.
(I actually haven't edited it or looked over it since that time.)
Regardless, I learned a lot about what worked and what didn't work. I found out that I needed to flesh out my characters more - give them reasons to be how they are. Moreover, in-universe, there was no reason for certain things to be the way they were. (In the real world, it was because I wanted them to be that way.)
I had reached too broadly and tried to cover too much new material in too short a period of time.
Nevertheless, I went on.
Around March, I came up with a new steampunk-inspired idea. Originally, it was going to be a play for ScriptFrenzy - a sister website to NaNoWriMo that focuses on writing a 50 page script (play, movie, TV episode, graphic novel) in the month of April.
Then I decided that was stupid and decided to do it for NaNoWriMo instead. If the steampunk element was only going to a glancing feature rather than the whole purpose of the play, then it was better to write it as a novel instead.
(I build sets for my college theater productions. I had to ask myself: would I want to build this? The answer: No.)
(I did ScriptFrenzy with another idea. I didn't get past ten pages.)
I then spent the summer doing something resembling research. I can now tell you more about the British peerage system than you probably ever wanted to know.
I did character designs, sketches, backstories.
Instead of creating a brand new world, I used our world, in 1886, in an alternate history where lighter-than-air travel took off a lot earlier and the Franco-Prussian war was not decisively won by the Prussians.
Instead of creating a brand new magic system, I introduced one or two maybe-magic items that could be taken as SCIENCE! And in this world, it was science.
I developed my two main characters personalities - at least, I tried. The two main characters were sisters. The older sister I had nailed down. I had her storyline nailed down. The younger sister I had no idea what to do with besides acting as her sister's foil.
I came up with a detailed history and reasons why certain characters were the way they were. There was to be mis-communication and misunderstandings!
The week before November I tracked down a friend and offered him $50 if I did not reach 50K words. His response? "I don't know why you do this to yourself."
Because I have a story to tell! (Sometimes I don't know either.)
I tried to get a lot of my friends, especially the ones who did it in 2010, to do NaNoWriMo 2011. I'm pretty sure I was the only one to get over 20K, much less 50K. I was alone.
This time, I was prepared.
And I did well. I finished before November 30th. This time, I wasn't writing by the seat of my pants.
I still had to come up with characters, but they were mostly servants and other background characters. Except for two: one of the love interests, who I came up with in later October, and a secondary character who I borrowed from another of my story ideas.
I still had to come up with scenes and had to mess around with the ending a bit, but it came out much like I was expecting.
I wrote this particular story because this is a story that I would like to read. It's like Girl Genius with less mad science and more conspiracy.
(If you have not heard of Girl Genius, run, don't walk, to the Girl Genius website and read it. It's a webcomic and it updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Always.)
I'm writing this post because I hope to get my 2011 novel, Magpie, Magpie, published one day.
It's not a romance. It's not a story that tries to show just how 'steampunk'-y it is. It's not a story where the heroine falls in love with some paranormal creature. There is very little fighting involved. (There are pirates)
It is a story about women being awesome despite towering odds. At least, that is the story I have tried to write.
My pitch is this:
The year is 1886; the place, the heart of the British Empire. London. In an alternate history, Margret van Camden runs her ailing father’s airship business in secret in spite of prevailing attitudes that women are gentle and delicate, certainly not capable of running a cut-throat and dangerous enterprise. Despite all of her cunning and wiles to keep the company afloat and alive, disaster and dangerous forces are closing in every where she turns. Can she keep her business stable while dealing with back-stabbing rivals and conspiracies?
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Margret’s little sister Katherine is rebelling in her own way by wearing trousers, flying airships and associating herself with others far below her class level. In the midst of her teenage years, Katherine tries to find balance with encroaching social demands, an ever distant family and what she wants out of life – and where love may factor into that.
Magpie, Magpie is a story of two sisters trying to find their own places in a world where what they want is not what society allows. Can they rise above all social norms to reach where they want to be in life?
To all future writers: NaNoWriMo is a wonderful and frustrating experience. I would recommend trying it at least once. It's possible.
Good luck.
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