NaNoWriMo 2023

If you follow me over on any of my social medias (i.e. Instagram, Facebook, and Threads), you’d know I am participating in NaNoWriMo again this month.

For those of you who DON’T know what NaNoWriMo is, there is a wonderful and informative podcast on the subject if you click here. Full disclaimer though – the podcaster is my other half and the link will open in another tab.

But I will give a quick overview. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and is always in the month of November. The goal is to write the first draft of a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days. It’s not a challenge that everyone likes to participate in, but it’s a good practice, at least for me, in getting words out even when they suck (since I am such a perfectionist when it comes to writing anyway). And since this is a first draft, all that matters are words….. though I break a few rules and try to edit what I have written while the challenge is ongoing. But that’s how I roll.

This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo. The first year, I wrote a novel of over 60 thousand words entitled The Year of the Winding Road. It was a fictionalized version of the goings on of my junior year in high school and was unique in that it WASN’T a fantasy story like the books I usually write. That story is still in a document on my computer that has only been shared with a few friends I have had since high school and the other half. It may stay there. I don’t know if I want to publish it, since I drew heavily from events in my own life, but it was cathartic to write it.

Last year, I wrote The Magician, which if you have followed my blog for any length of time you’d know I have serialized it here on The Magician page. I am gaining in readers on that story and the other half is posting audio chapters of it over on his aforementioned podcast – here is the direct link to audio version of the first chapter. Each chapter drops every other Saturday on my blog (yesterday the tenth chapter, Club was released), while the other half releases the audio files every other Monday and will release the second chapter tomorrow (Monday, 6 November 2023).

This year, I am writing a sequel to The Magician that I have been toying with for a bit. It will be set three years after the events that happened to Ignace Godding, Vanessa Rankin and all of their friends and family that are involved. It will also take place in a new city. Where The Magician takes place in a fictionalized magical version of Chicago called Allium, this story will take place in my absolute favorite city in the United States – Philadelphia. The working title is The Trickster and centers around a new character, a street wise magician named Remy Sheets who helps Vanessa and Ignace out while they are in the city for reasons of their own. There is a bunch of history in this story, as I am pulling in some of the events of my Philadelphian family past into this magical city of Lefteria, including a train wreck that killed my great-great-grandfather in 1900 that I have written extensively about in the past. I’ve always wanted to add the train wreck story from my own history to a story, so this is already promising to be a blast.

If you’re from Philadelphia and have any ideas on details about the city that I should throw in as easter eggs or part of the plot (fictionalizing them to be part of the urban fantasy of Lefteria of course) I will gladly take suggestions! I’ll work in what I can. I’m not a native Philadelphian, though I have family there. I have been in the city multiple times and have family history going back to the founding of the city (Anthony Morris is an ancestor) so I am pulling information as I can and crafting details along the way.

Anyway, I still plan to do this crazy challenge WHILE working full time, continuing to maintain my social media presences, try to sell a few books (shameless self plug here….. my books are actually the only thing writing wise that makes me any money), PUBLISH another novel since Heirs to the Realm is almost ready to go for my Portals Series, come up with an adventure everyday for my Squishey friends, be the worship leader at my church for the month, and write at least two blog posts a week. Wish me luck!

There’s a good number of links in the above writing that offer more information on all that I and the other half are doing, so feel free to check them out!

Stay magical.

Write your own story.

I know I will.

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If you wanted to see some of the fantasy books I have written, check out my Portals Series. My serial novel is available for free on this blog here.

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And as always, #writeyourownstory