I’m really excited to be jumping back into fiction writing by participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or even NaNo for short) this year. This will be only my second time taking part in this challenge; the first was way back in 2015, which feels like ancient history now.
This is a good year for me to participate, as my current day job is part-time and light on the writing, so I’m not spending all my creative energy on other people’s blogs. And sadly, with the pandemic being what it is and the Seattle area already experiencing very cold weather, I’ll probably be snugged up at home for most of November anyway. So why not spending my time writing the first 50k or so words of a new fiction project?
My NaNoWriMo Project
My project’s placeholder title is currently The Ghost of Zillow Mansion. It’s about a Millennial who suddenly comes into money and uses it to buy a fixer-upper on Zillow with the idea of renovating it and turning it into a retreat venue. Sure, the house is rundown and spooky, but there’s no such thing as ghosts, so the house is definitely not haunted.
(spoiler alert: it’s totally haunted)
Genre-wise, it falls somewhere between paranormal romance and contemporary romance. If you’ve read One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, I’m aiming for a similar level of reality vs. fantastic elements. In fact I’d say the two biggest literary influences on this project are One Last Stop, and Cherie Priest’s The Family Plot.
Why I’m Excited for this Project
Aside from the obvious excitement around finally feeling like I can get back to writing fiction again, there are a few things about this particular project that really excite me.
It’s exciting to write a new-to-me genre (all of my past works would definitely be considered fantasy, with some romantic elements).
I’m also excited to have the excuse to research a bunch of random things. Without getting into spoilers, to do this book justice I’ll have to research:
- Home renovation
- 1920s fashions
- Early 20th century New York politics
- Ghosts and haunted houses
Has my research thus far mostly consisted of watching YouTube fashion historians rant about inaccurate “flapper girl” costumes? Of course. But I was also thrilled to find footage from actual 1920s fashion shows. YouTube: It’s not just for getting radicalized!
Aside from all of that, writing this book is also going to be a way for me to process living in These Unprecedented Times ™. This is going to be a very 2021 book. I don’t know how much of my opinions about the pandemic, the economy, freelancing, housing, and social media will ever see the light of day, but it will feel good to get it all out in a first draft.
On a more pleasant note, I’m also happy to have connected to my local NaNo community. Even though all events need to remain virtual, it’s still nice to make new writing friends. I feel like the last 18+ months has really put a damper on my attempts to build more friendships locally, and meeting a whole new group of people who like geeking out about writing is really nice.
How I’m Doing Things Differently
I have to admit that in the past, especially as a much younger writer, I rarely had much of a plan going into my books. My stories usually started with an idea like: “What if there was a princess who got sick of constantly being kidnapped?” and then as soon as I thought of the idea, I’d start writing a book and see what happened. Not surprisingly, I’d usually end up bogged down in the middle, with either no idea how the book was supposed to end, or no idea how to get to an end I’d envisioned.
This time around, I’m more or less following along with the NaNoWriMo prep period, and one part of that was figuring out your plotting style. I took an internet quiz, which as we all know is the best way to discover your inner truth, and it suggested that I might resonate with the “9-step plot dot”.
Inspired by the archetypal Hero’s Journey (like so much of the Western literature canon…), this plotting method has you map out 9 major plot beats. While I don’t know if my plot beats exactly match the Hero’s Journey template (there is after all a big difference between say, a fantasy adventure and a haunted house romance), just thinking about the highs and lows of the story and what needs to happen between the beginning and end has given me some nice structure to deal with.
I definitely prefer to have just a scaffolding to work with, with lots of room to fill in the more minor individual scenes that will develop my characters and their romance. In the past, on the rare occasion when I have figured out a more fleshed-out plot and known how things were supposed to go, I’ve found myself bored — it felt like I was just doing the work of writing down what I already knew, almost like transcribing or copying something rather than going on an exciting journey of discovery.
Are You Doing NaNo, Too?
If you’re also participating in NaNoWriMo, or a similar challenge, I’d love to hear about your project in the comments.