Two slight problems with NaNo18. One, I’ve only started today, i.e. five days late. Two, I’m changing genre and venturing into the terra incognita of Contemporary Romance.
Late starter
I sent Skyriders 3, ‘Fate of the Skyriders’ to my editor last Friday, took the weekend to do family stuff, and this morning I was at my desk starting a brand new project for this year NaNoWriMo challenge.
Let’s be clear: I would never, ever run a marathon (not even a half, not even a quarter), but when I’m committing to writing 50,000 words in a month, I’m raring to go.
The fact I’m starting 5 days late doesn’t bother me. It will take me a few days to catch up, but it always ends up in a mad dash around 25 November anyway, so nothing new!
Change of genre
Now here’s the catch… After three consecutive books, I’m leaving behind the familiarity of Dystopian Fiction, and abandoning my beloved Skyriders to their happy-ever-afters.
This year, I’m having a go at a love story firmly set in the real world, and in 2018. There will be mobile phones and the internet, and not a giant bird in sight.
I didn’t even have to open the random name generator to find monikers for my main characters (a first!). I went with my god-daughter’s name and my son’s middle name. Their surnames were a bit more of a stretch: I chose Wilkinson like the razors, and Anders like one of the secondary characters in Battlestar Galactica (*geek alert*).
That was obviously the easy part. Now, I have to plot a romance, and make my characters quirky but relatable! I’m not feeling too confident about that.
At least, I have a catchy title and a place-holder cover, see above… but I’m so scared to be no good at romance that I’ve gone for a nom-de-plume. In my usual ‘don’t look too far’ method, I replaced my first name with another Italian city!
Wish me luck!
With love,