November is National Novel Writing Month, and I’m getting pumped. I participated and won in 2008 with over 52,000 words. Even though I’ll be going home for the holidays, I’m planning on writing much more than the required 50,000 this time around.
I aim to re-imagine a story that I’ve tried multiple times to get out of my head in the past. Here’s the quick-and-dirty synopsis for this year’s tentatively titled “Granger”:
Danny Granger was proud, arrogant even, but a damn good firefighter. The other men said he was strong, tough like his father: who’d given his life to the noble work. They loved his mother too: everyone had read her books growing up. And Dan’s girlfriend never failed to catch peoples’ eye.
Everything seemed to be working out for the up-and-coming lieutenant. Then came the call.
Dragging himself along the floor of his childhood home, choking on the thick plumes of smoke, Danny failed to rescue his mother from the blaze.
So when he wakes up a week later in a hospital bed, spouting crazy stories about a quest to save the fantasy land of his mother’s books, everyone assumes that the loss and grief have gone straight to Dan’s head.
But his right hand wasn’t scarred before the fire. And his mother’s notes tell a story far more fantastic then what trickled down into her books.
His world is crashing around him, and he’s faced with a choice: does he choose to disregard his mother’s fantasies as such? Or does he risk everything and try to go back and save her world?
This week I need to get the outline finished. I’ll start writing the actual story this Saturday at midnight.
View my profile on the NaNoWriMo site.
Also, it looks like I won’t be finishing the port of PunishPad in time for this year’s novel. Not that I’m too concerned, as I’ve found that I haven’t really been needing it for my own writing. I do intend on finishing it, as I need the practice with wxPython.
Jon Thysell 