Welcome to Gaia! ::

What are some of the NaNo novels you've worked on in the past (whether you finished them or not).

I've done steampunk fantasy, a couple of power ranger stories and attempted an inside the mind Matrix/Inception/Sucker Punch type story. One story I regret not being able to finish was about a group of people on a reality TV show starting their own micronation in the middle of the Pacific. I'll probably try that one again someday as a series of short stories.

Now that I think about it, most of my three NaNo novels were about corrupt institutions and violent revolutions. The first one was about a group of continents isolated from the rest of the world by an artificial structure known as the Net. It takes place both in the past and the present, though the revolution is different in both and far more violent in the past. This world is probably my baby, the story I remember most fondly. I never really finished it, the 50k I wrote of it I rather absolutely hated and didn't think much of it was worth saving. I've been rolling it around in my head ever since thinking about it. When I'm not bogged down with stress I may try starting it over. Maybe. Or maybe it will always just be a dream inside my head.

The second was just a mish mash of random characters I had being taken from their worlds and dropped into a place that is basically dying, falling apart. What they don't know at first is that their life energy is what the bad guys are after because they can use it to repair the fractures in the dying world. I never really got this one planned out though I'd like to go back to it.

And then of course, this one I'm writing now is also a revolution type thing. It's a world where there are sharp divisions between people who have a certain power and those who do not, while around this conflict a group of creatures known as the Voids are ransacking the countryside and getting progressively worse as the years go on. They drain the life out of their victims (I know what you're thinking, and no, these are not vampires) and basically there are very limited ways to combat them. This last story is a lot about cycles and repeating pasts. The fate of everyone living in this world comes to rest on the backs of those who originally sought to destroy it, in a way.

I've done two Nano's so far, so this will be year three. Year one's novel was published through a small publisher this past August (horror/paranormal) and the second year I wrote about a young necromancer.

Death seems to be a theme... Maybe this year I should write about--flowers? Sunshine? We'll see.

Let's see...

'07 - High tech woman gets stranded on a low tech world.

'08 - Space pirates

'09 - Zombies

'10 - Alien Abduction

I've attempted NaNoWriMo three times, this will be be the fourth. The past two years I've won.

My first story, which never made it over 10,000 words, was about a vampire and a werewolf who were best buds. The vampire was always trying to pick up chicks at bars, but they always thought he and the werewolf were gay for each other. It was fun while it lasted, but had no plot.

The second was Zombie Eater. Which was about a guy who could eat zombies. It was gross. There were also werecats.

The third was Pirate King. This is my favorite so far, it was about a prince who ran off and became a pirate. Also he fell in love with a shape-shifting kraken. And there was magic, sword fights, assassins, a female knight, and other fun stuff.

This year's story is one I've been working on for about as long as I can remember. One of the main characters is based on an imaginary friend I had when I was little. It's a more traditional fantasy novel about a young woman with magic powers who keeps getting involved with various wars and running around after a depressed dragon. Who is also her best friend. It's called Lileara's Shadow. (which is punny because the woman's name is Lileara and Shadow is the dragon)

2010: Science Fiction with some fantasy and lots of space pirates. (Search in the Stars). Then a high fantasy comedy/parody that never really went anywhere. (Tales from beyond the Horizon)

2011: Science Fiction with a lot of comedy and then non sequiters (Helping the Shadows), another high fantasy with the intended main character coming in at 57k, (Shadows of the Gods). Then a crime drama in book format that went nowhere, (Defenestrate the Damsel).

2012: High Fantasy, have you noticed a pattern?, that should go somewhere(Binding the Stars). If I need a second one, Western Romance - with sci-fi because I only specified no fantasy.

Uh, jeez... I can't remember if all of these are actual NaNo novels or if I was trying to do one of the summer Wrimos or what, but:

1. Sci-fi/fantasy comedy/drama/adventure nonsense.

What I remember: My idiot characters, mad scientist and ghost and catgirl and computer AIs and intergalactic courier service, get caught up in some smuggling operation involving shrunken planets. One of the main characters was secretly a dragon and considered it horribly shameful (you're a dragon, you idiot. What the hell are you going on about?)

Won, barely. Had to add a padding section where everyone told stories around a campfire. Completely unsalvageable, I added way too many dares and whatever random bullshit popped into my head.

2. Steampunk nonsense set in a flying academy for mad scientists I WASN'T RIPPING OFF GIRL GENIUS WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. There ended up being a war with pirates and none of the 'good' guys died at all because I was a massive wuss. Also lots of nonsense segments, dares, etc. I wound up really regretting killing off the main character's father because I later brought in his ex-adventuring partner and they were BFFS 5EVER back in the day and...

Anyway I want to rewrite that one at some point, except they'll be... I don't know, journeying into the dark jungle to find a cure for the main character's father, and probably he and his adventuring partner are the main characters because the original main character turned out to be a bit Mary Sue.

3. Tried to do a sequel to the above. Failed repeatedly. Started to wish i hadn't killed the main character's father. Began to hate the main character for being a constantly-apologizing little s**t.

4. A thing about a band of thieves stealing things they didn't understand. Namely haunted jewelry. The leader ended up possessed by the spirit of not!Anubis, and then he slept with the detective that was supposed to be tracking them down, and... stuff. Technically won but I don't think I ever finished it. I reused the characters in later plots and combined a few of them... which means there's a chunk in the middle of the book that now kind of reads like their future selves went back in time to help them out. It's jarring.

5. Silent Hill fanfic~ A woman chasing after her adopted daughter ends up in Silent Hill and is forced to team up with a serial killer to get her daughter back. (Said serial killer being Walter Sullivan, who was only keeping her alive because he needed her. I technically won but didn't finish -- I stopped right before the 'final battle', but at the end of the outline he killed her to get what he wanted and then abandoned her ghost there because he didn't give a s**t. It was great.)

6. Aaaaa this thiiiiing. Urban fantasy. Uh... there's this band of legendary creatures, right? And I mean a band -- a Deer Woman is their bass player, a Rusalka is their female singer, their drummer is... descended from Puss In Boots, as far as anyone can tell.... (Actually that's a lie. That's how it is now, but at the time the drummer was an Inugami. Anyway, whatever)

But actually it's about their lead guitarist...s. See, he's a ghost and she's a psychic medium. She can't play guitar to save her life, he used to be famous, etc. They fall in love, uh... I honestly have no idea what happened in this thing. I hit at least 75k, which was cool, but not only did I not finish I didn't even get to the middle. There's gaps in this thing you could drive a space station through.

The plot squirmed like a snake while I was writing it and after I was writing it and... basically absolutely none of this draft is salvageable at all, at least partly because I was trying to avoid designing the ghost's past bandmates and ended up saying he was in Dethklok. *socks past self in the snout*

Oh, and somewhere between writing this and now, I decided that I was going to drop the whole urban fantasy 'masquerade' business so a lot of the scenes don't even make sense anymore.

I kept the characters and the general idea and I'm still trying to write this b*****d but it keeps growing tendrils and extending in all sorts of weird directions. There's a dozen stories in this mess.

7. I tried about five different variations on 'how Isabel and Elliot met' -- remember how I said there was a segment in plot 4 with future selves? These are those characters. Elliot (previously Nathan, previously Eli, previously... I don't remember. It took months to nail a name to him) was originally a government agent sorta thing, and Isabel was his partner, and they showed up to deal with the mess Miles (thief) and whats-his-name made of things in that plot.

Except now, whats-his-name and Elliot are the same character. Miles is his partner before he ever meets Isabel. Plot 4, severely rewritten, is their backstory. There's tons of ~drama~ and s**t because the bosses want Miles destroyed because he's possessed and dangerous and yada yada yada.

Anyway I didn't win, even with trying like five different versions of this. I eventually just decided that Isabel didn't need a dramatic introduction and I'd just run with my 'let's rip off the X-Files' idea, but by then it was too late to get anything written.

8. Hnnng. Post-apocalyptic mafia funtimes. Ok, uh... definitely a summer wrimo thing here.

You see plot 6? I got sick of trying to re-outline that one, took all the characters, and dropped them into different roles in a weird post-apocalyptic dystopia thing.

There's a city split into three pieces, all three of which are falling apart. There's towering, darkened skyscrapers, there's a swamp, there's a religious cult. There's a wasteland outside the borders that nobody can go into without vanishing into nothingness. (Not quite true... but that's a long story)

This started out as an excuse to put the characters from plot 6 in suits without having to send them to a funeral, and then went slightly out of control.

???. Oh, I just found a scrap from the past. Apparently somewhere in there, right after the first NaNo I did, I tried to do... Gaia Online fanfic. Pairing Gino Gambino and my OFC. Don't look at me like that. ;_;