Well, November is nearly here and that means National Novel Writing Month! This will be the third year I’ve participated, and hopefully another year that I’ll win. 🙂 The first year, I wrote most of my third book in my Solennelle & O series, and last year, I wrote half of the fourth book in the same series. I haven’t finished writing Book Four yet, so I don’t want to start on the fifth book in the series just yet. I wrote a couple books out of order once already when I wrote Book Three before Book Two was done, and I don’t want to be so confusing again this year. Instead, I’m going to write a sort of inter-book, something that takes place between Books Three and Four but which doesn’t really further the overall plot of the series. Fluff, I guess you could say.

The “plot” of the book I’m writing is that it’s O’s birthday, and his friends (Sol, Erra, Johm, and Justus) are all going out and getting him presents before his party. I don’t know how many of you read the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, but I read them a lot and always wanted to write one. This one’s called Pick Your Present: O’s Birthday and the reader will have the choice of leading one of the four above characters around to buy something for O. It’s going to be different writing this than my usual fantasy fare because this will be in the second person present versus the third person past that I’m used to, and I’ll also be writing it for four different voices rather than just from Solennelle’s perspective. All of the various storylines will end up at the party, however, and the final chapter will be some sort of conversation between O and Sol after everyone has gone.

I have a few concerns with writing a “Pick Your Path” sort of book. One, I’m not one hundred percent sure that I’ll be able to eke out 50,000 words writing such a book. I have no idea how long my “chapters” are going to be, and I may find that I need to add some more shopping options or dead ends in order to reach the NaNo goal of 50k words in 30 days. Two, it’s going to be hairy keeping track of where paths begin and end, but I think I can manage so long as I go back through periodically and check to make sure I’m not leading to the wrong page number and the like. Also, since I’m going to include as part of each chapter a line at the top saying which page(s) the path followed from (don’t know if I’ll leave that in the finished product, but it’s going to be in there as I write), I’ll be able to work in reverse as well as forward. Three, writing consistently in the second person present (i.e., “You walk down a long corridor”) versus third person past (i.e., “I walked down a long corridor”) is going to be challenging. I’m sure I’ll slip up and either jump back to “I” or “he” and “she” as well as the past tense. Editing this will be a nightmare. Four, again the four different voices are going to be a challenge. Each of the four characters being followed are pretty different. If you’ve read the books, you know Solennelle’s perspective pretty well because the novel series is written from her perspective, but now I’m going to have to create mindsets and moods for Erra (a precocious Elf enchantress with way too much energy), Johm (a rough-and-tumble Elf ranger and half-brother to Erra), and Justus (a seasoned general in control of an entire nation’s armies). Not a lot in common between the three, so voice is going to be interesting.

I suppose something that helps is the fact that I’ve already outlined more or less what’s going to take place in the book. I have notecards listing which choice options each character has and what paths each can take. I know what in the end each will be able to buy for O’s party, and as such, I don’t have to worry about coming up with present ideas or shops on the fly. Like I said earlier, I may need to add more options, but with a bare-bones plan in front of me, the “plot” is at least taken care of.

And so I nervously await the beginning of NaNoWriMo at midnight, wondering if perhaps I should work on a regular novel instead and perhaps write that library mystery or try to actually work on that romance novel I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while. Ian said that five days into NaNo, I might change my mind on the “Pick Your Path” book and opt for a novel instead, and he may be right. It’s going to be an interesting month one way or another. I’ll have to dig up that NaNo widget for the page again so you can all keep up on my progress. 🙂