What I Accomplished During National Novel Writing Month this Year
My book revision project has turned into a promising fantasy book series.
My 2019 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) activities kept me busy from sun up to sundown this year. Instead of starting a totally brand new writing project, I chose to work on a total revision of one of my previously screwed up books — my very first novel, written in 2014.
Did I accomplish the NaNoWriMo objective and write 50,000 words or more? Yep! Did I complete my novel? Sort of. I ended up writing a 24,000 stand-alone novella called Tell Us the Mermaid Story, that attempts to introduce a book series, which I’m about 30,000 words into writing.
Sequencing Events
The new (soon to be released) Nano project is a novella. Though it’s a stand-alone story, it’s written as a teaser to announce the related upcoming book series. I don’t think “Tell Us the Mermaid Story” really qualifies as a prequel, since it actually takes place two decades after the events in the book series, but it loosely summarizes certain events from that same period in the past.
Avoiding Spoilers
In Tell Us the Mermaid Story, those events are told from someone with a limited point of view, and conveyed in story-like form to 3 children. In between telling the story to the kids, the mother drops hints to the reader, through private reflections, just enough to create suspicion about which parts of the story (if any) are true.
I feel I did a good job of pulling this off, without providing any spoilers for the upcoming book series. At least, that was my objective while I was writing it. Some honest feedback would sure help me know if I accomplished my purpose.
Another Challenge
Another big challenge for me while working on this project was to make sure it is understood that neither the novella or the upcoming book series are written for children. That was why from the very start, I open with a telephone conversation between two adults, and their discussion establishes this fact right away. This was tricky to navigate, since the protagonist in the story that the children are listening to is also a child.
In actuality, the adult telling the mermaid story is speaking in a retrospective way, so even though the story’s protagonist is a child, Tell Us the Mermaid Story” is written to appeal to an older audience of at least teenage to older readers.
Target Audience
I foresee female teens and adult fantasy readers enjoying Tell Us the Mermaid Story and the Merquatican book series. Of course, I’m hoping it will also appeal to male fantasy readers as well, but I suspect more females will generate to the mostly female POV of most of my characters. We’ll see.
I’m really looking for some honest, no B.S. feedback from actual fantasy readers, so if any of you out there would like to get introduced to a new fantasy world of mermaids that will be making a big splash real soon, please let me know.
Story Excerpt Available
Like any excited author with a pending release, I couldn’t wait to share a bit of the story with someone — anyone. So I’ve provided two excerpts from Tell Us the Mermaid Story, right here on Medium.
If you stay tuned and follow me here on Medium, you’ll get a chance to see the reveal of the book cover for Tell Us the Mermaid Story, plus:
SOMETHING ELSE I REVEAL ON THAT DAY!
Thanks for choosing to read one of my Medium stories. Since the writing of this particular story, a lot has happened and I invite you to visit my Justiss Goode Medium profile and read some of my recent personal essays and miscellaneous life lessons that I know you will enjoy and benefit from.
