Hello friends,
Let me give you a quick update about how this November writing month has been progressing. And the update is quite a positive one. I have been progressing at a rather quick pace and doing so with a lot of fun. As of writing this post, I am a little past 35.000 words with still more to write before the day (Sunday) is over. I’ve gotten some fun scenes written down already and I also immediately have things I want to change. I can’t wait to get started on revising this draft once the month is over.
My first plan for this volume was that it would maybe be two parts, due to the large amount of content I had planned for it. I’ve changed this significantly. I’d rather have one slightly longer volume than two slightly shorter ones. This means that I have to cut some content, but I think that’s fine. I’m also actively thinking of content to add to volume 2 to make it more interesting. I’m happy about the overall plot of 1 and 3, but 2 still bothers me.
What I’ve spent a lot of my time on is googling how diving bells work. Without going into big spoilers, one of the main problems that the gang runs into in this volume is that they need to get to the bottom of the ocean but do so in a more efficient manner than they did in volume 1. That was more or less a total failure on Mana and Cassandra’s end, but both of them were still quite inexperienced. With volume 4, I’m hoping to show their growth when it comes to this particular thing. So yeah, I watched some scenes of the underwater canoe stuff in Pirates of the Caribbean and although it’s not a realistic trick, it is fun to derive a magical alternative form that. Mana doesn’t actually know how diving bells work after all. I hope my wonky magical explanation for how they finally get it to work is realistic enough that it doesn’t take away from people’s enjoyment of the story. I’m not the smartest guy I know so I can’t actually invent underwater air rooms after all.
Lastly, I want this volume to feel calm before the storm. Things have been happening – many of them out of sight from our main characters, and the next volume should be the finale of the first big arc. I haven’t fully figured out how to end that volume yet, but I’ve got time.
To quickly go back to NaNoWriMo, I started very strong with writing 9000 words in the first three days. I’ve obviously slowed down since, but I want to be comfortably done with the 50.000 words before the month is over. December can be a quieter month where I focus on some other things. I hope those of you who are also writing this month are doing well. If that’s you, let me know your progress down below and as always, thanks for reading. There’s tons of Hesitant Hero content coming to you next year, so be patient for another month or two.
Opal Kaharis 