A Work in Progress

Yes, that it’s already that time of year again. I’m not at all clear where the past year went (as the dearth of blog posts here might indicate), but the calendar tells me that it time for NaNoWriMo again.

This year, as I seem to be doing every other year (as in alternating years, not year after year), I’ll be placing my story in the future universe I created several years ago.

While spending most of the past year co-writing a novel set in that same universe, my co-author kept asking me questions about the settings and characters that I just sort of knew and accepted as canon based on my gut feel for that universe. One character, though, remained stubbornly somewhat of a cipher.

I completely understood his origin in the gaming context in which he was originally created, and he possessed a distinct personality, but very little had been revealed about him except for his skills and abilities. As we discussed the back story of that character, trying to fill in needed gaps here and there, several intriguing ideas about his background came into being—some of which demanded further explanation.

So, this year’s NaNoWriMo effort is going to attempt to chronicle his history. As a starting point, I have a few small nuggets of ideas, but nothing yet that feels that it can carry the weight of 50,000 (or more) words. It’s going to be a challenge from both a storytelling and structural standpoint.

As during previous years, you can follow my progress through the month here and read daily raw excerpts here.

Well, I’d better get started. The story sure isn’t going to write itself . . .