NaNoWriMo 2023 | Part 2

How it went... plus an introduction to the Boy of the Forest

If you follow my writing career closely, you might be a little confused or even concerned about which project I’m working on at any given time.

It’s mutual. I’m a mood writer.

So in Part 1 of this post at the end of October, I outlined my Everwolf Chronicles NaNoWriMo goal as roughly 3000 word first drafts of 10 short stories and 20,000 words on the first draft of the second book. I also said I didn’t think I was going to reach the 50,000 word goal. I didn’t, but I did complete the draft of a novel that I’m very proud of, and I love that I get to say I finished something.

I logged just over 18,000 words, but I would have actually written closer to 20,000. I wrote the first drafts of about four short stories, plus a chapter of the novel I’m co-writing with a friend, and wrote the climax and ending of another novel, Boy of the Forest.

I was keeping to the daily word goal every day for about two weeks, feeling very confident that maybe I could actually reach 50,000. Then I took a day off, and found that I just couldn’t be bothered getting back into it. I decided I wanted to finish a draft of something and have a sense of completion, rather than reach a word count goal. I hit a block on the Everwolf Chronicles, so enter: Boy of the Forest.

Boy of the Forest is a YA fantasy, The False Prince meets The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. It follows 16 y/o Wren who is a freelance monster hunter (but will occasionally solve your petty thefts) who works in a world corrupted after the damage of its Heart. When he’s hired to find the lost heir to the kingdom, he knows it’s an impossible task. But when he actually finds her, he’s thrown into the middle of a civil war. But poison is seeping through the land, and if the Heart isn’t healed in time, it’s not going to matter who sits on the throne. And you know what, he’s just not getting paid enough for this.

Boy of the Forest was my 2021 NaNoWriMo project, where I reached just under 33,000 words and decided it was done (I write very short first drafts.) I’ve been picking at fixing up that draft ever since, and finally finished the second draft in November. Yay! I’m so addicted to this story again, and I’m excited to keep editing it and eventually pass it to early readers. The Everwolf Chronicles needs another rethink, so it’s stewing in the back of my mind for now.

So I didn’t hit the NaNoWriMo goal, but I’m still so happy with what I achieved in November!

If you did NaNoWriMo this year, I’d love to hear how you went.