It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted, though in my defense, the last year and a half have been by far the worst time of my life. If you’re wondering why, just go back a couple of posts. I don’t want to go over the reasons things have been so rough recently, and that’s not even counting the pandemic. Suffice it to say that it’s been hard to motivate myself to work on my writing. I did manage to publish a book that I’d already written, but haven’t been able to get myself to actually write anything new. I was working on the third book of my Valoria series at the time my wife passed away, and since then I’ve maybe added two chapters. And I don’t even think they’re very good. So, yeah. It’s been tough.

So, when November came around, I decided to give National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) a try. Nanowrimo is a writing challenge that comes up every November, where the goal is to write 50,000 words in only 30 days. I’ve done this many times, and I’ve won the challenge every time except for 2019, which is when all of the bad stuff was happening. I thought that maybe the challenge would motivate me to start writing again. My daughter also decided to participate for the first time, and so we would be able to encourage each other with our goals. I was a little nervous, but I had what I felt was a good idea for a new book, so I set aside the Valoria novel and started my preparations for my new story. When November 1st came around, I was ready.

And I won! It wasn’t easy, especially when I took a week long vacation to Florida towards the end of the month with my daughters. It’s not easy to get a lot of words written while you’re driving across the country, or when you’re riding a roller coaster. It came down to the wire. I had to write about 5,000 words on the last day of the month, but when midnight came around, I was comfortably past the 50,000 mark. My daughter won as well, for the record. She did a great job.

Now, the novel isn’t finished. I still have maybe another 10,000 words to go, but that’s perfectly in range, especially since I do know how the story is going to end. (That’s not always the case when I’m writing.) The main difficulty is that I’m a school teacher. When I do nanowrimo, I tend to get a little behind on things like grading and lesson preparation, which means that in December I have to work very hard to get caught up again, which means less time for writing. So what happens is that my mind drifts out of writing mode, and it’s hard to push it back in that direction. At this point, several months past November, I haven’t made a lot of progress in finishing the story. But I am feeling a push to get it done, which I haven’t had in a while. I also have a lot of people encouraging me, which helps as well. So, I’m optimistic, which is more than I’ve been able to say in quite a while.

Anyway, here’s a little teaser of my new (not quite finished) book, for those who are interested:

Wen is obsessed with Heroes, who throughout history have been chosen by a magical Oracle to save the country of Tedrium from dangers that have threatened in the past. So, when word comes to his family’s farm that the Oracle has announced that a new Hero is soon to be chosen, Wen starts to believe that his dream of joining the ranks of the Heroes of the past might actually become a reality. Unfortunately, harvest time is busy, and so the only person available to accompany Wen to the capital is his grandfather, who is too old to help with the work of the farm. All Wen cares about is getting to the oracle in time to witness the choosing. Surely the Oracle will be able to see how pure his heart is, and make the correct choice! But when they reach the oracle, not even Wen is prepared for what happens when the Oracle makes its choice…

I have more news, but we’ll have to get to that later.