Committing to NaNoWriMo 2013!

There are a lot of things I've wanted to get accomplished, both throughout my life and in the last year or so, that I haven't.  Things come up, things slip the mind, whatever.  Excuses are excuses, and while there is a difference between "excuses" and "explanations," I'm guilty of a little of each.  However, despite an abortive attempt in 2010, I succeeded in completing National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, in 2011.  I produced a little-known work called Protostar:  Memoirs Of The Messenger, released it on Amazon's Kindle, and it's probably my best-selling novel to date.

It was genuinely a blast, and while I'm too much of a coward to venture into the public, in-the-flesh NaNoWriMo gatherings (and I question the sense of having them during the "contest," when everyone is wired on the fifty-thousand-word deadline!), I certainly enjoyed the self-imposed challenge of writing 50k words in thirty meager days.  I took 2012 off for many reasons, not least this - let's be polite! - unpleasant woman named Sandy who strolled through my town, but now I'm back, baby!

For 2013, I plan to pen a sequel of Protostar!

I've written some notes.  I'm assured that isn't cheating!  So far I think I want to go with a sort of jarring start, and while I plan to feature the same cast of characters (the crew of The Messenger), I'm going to make the first chunk of the book about solving a riddle trapped in Captain Lahira Ocean's mind.  At least, that's what I'm thinking I'll do!  Once that's deciphered, her team will have to put that solution into practice - a completely different scenario!

Will Humankind survive it's war against the Orphans?  Well, when the first novel ended we were assured that Lahira had succeeded in creating allies among her former enemies, and a rebellion was afoot in the alien ranks.  Whatever the exact state-of-the-war, this isn't one of those tales where last-minute heroics is the only hope of our future-species.  At least, not yet!  Remember, dear reader, that there are in fact three other alien species out there:  The fish-like Aquarians, the brutish Firions, and the artificially-intelligent Automatons.  Despite Mankind's good relations with all three (and even with military aid coming from them!), is it possible that they could somehow change this war's course for the worse?

Outside of the realm of plot devices and character arcs, I also want to experiment with more editorial precision when it comes to creating the final, distributed product.  Protostar is probably the least-edited of my more recent books, since it was written in under a month and all.  There was no ongoing proofreading process.  Things just got, well, written.  Publication was never a major consideration!  This time, it is.  So this time, after November is done, it will be heavily redacted processed.

As always, I'll blog about it!