I’ve heard of NaNoWriMo a long time ago, but I’ve never had the urge to participate in it until recently. For those of you unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo is a yearly challenge where writers are challenged to write 50.000 words or more in the month of November. The idea is to focus on continuously writing without going back and editing. Some finish an entire novel in this time, others just get a large start on theirs. For those who haven’t done the math yet, this means roughly 1667 words per day. That’s a lot of words. I’m not super confident I can do it, but I’ll give it my best. My most productive month in recent memory was about 35.000 words, so two thirds. That’s without really trying though. But enough about that, what will I be writing about?
I will be writing an Isekai story. For those less familiar with anime and manga, this is their name for the “person in a strange world” genre. Generally someone dies and gets reincarnated in a new world, gets stuck in a video game world, or is summoned there through magic. I’ve seen a lot of stories in this genre, and one of two things always happens in the ones I’ve seen. The first is these people are there to be the hero of the story, either out of their own will or by being forced by circumstances. The second kind is people moving to the countryside and living a happy life away from stress and hard work. My take on the genre lies somewhere in the middle of these two, but of course I’d like to put a twist on it, to keep it original in a sense.
That’s where the main character, Cobal comes in. Cobal is the third son of the current king and has been put in charge of helping the newly summoned hero, dubbed Lady Mana, adjust to her new world. You see, the King and his royal advisors expected a strong hero to appear, just like the last time they attempted this ritual, but instead of that a scared woman with seemingly no fighting ability appeared. Understandably distressed about the whole situation, Lady Mana requests some time to set her mind straight, and Cobal suggests going to the coastal town of Ravadier, located on the southern peninsula of Palaria. There the two start getting entangled into local problems.
I have done some planning for the early chapters, but nothing super concrete yet. Of course I have plot points and ideas set out, but the road to get there is something I hope to come up with as I’m writing. That’s how I usually tend to write my stories as well. I have points that I want to get to, so I just start writing until my characters get to those points. Either way, I hope I can at the very least set a record for the amount of words I write in a single month, and I hope to even hit the 50.000 mark.
Now what does this mean for the blog?
Not too much if all goes well. I’ve been getting ready to write a bit more, and to do so I’ve been preparing a few posts already. I hope to be able to stick to 2 or 3 posts per week still, but if that doesn’t end up happening, I apologize in advance. Are any of you participating in this challenge, or have you participated in the past? Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.
Opal Kaharis 