NaNoWriMo 2021 Completed
I decided to write a novel in November. I've tried this before and my previous effort only yielded 33,000 words. It was always painful frustrating and a little humiliating since I know a lot of people (including Heather) who have completed this challenge (she's done it twice!) . But I had an idea, a strong one, and I had a feeling I could do it.
I play a D&D character named Umbra Luna. When I made the character I set out to create someone who had deep roots in the Forgotten Realms (the "official D&D setting" ) and so she had a lot of story hooks already published in novels, game materials, and adventures. Then I played her in an ongoing game with a small group that only deepened her personality and nuances. I **know** this character. But during an adventure, for some reason I did something even I didn't expect.
I let an enemy go free. I could not explain to you why, at the time I did it, why I did it, but it was just the character asserting itself. And it left me with this huge gaping hole in my understanding of this character. It made me (as her) doubt her own motivations. It, in short, created a crisis for her. This, my friends, is the stuff of great fiction. But the campaign did not seem likely to veer into my navel-gazing self-reflection of this character. But I wanted to know the answers!
WHY did she let the enemy go. WHAT happened as a result of that rash decision, WHEN was it going to come back and bite her, HOW was it going to affect everyone around her. I started to think about these questions and that's when I saw the NaNoWriMo Announcement. And so that was the novel. I seized the opportunity and started making notes. I announced my intension of writing this book and on November 1, 2021 I started typing it out.
I can write pretty fast when inspired and so my stats speak for themselves. I wrote on average 65 minutes a day, at 3 words per minute. I averaged about 2000 words a day and hit my "par" goal to keep ahead of the writing curve all but 3 days of the days I worked on this project. The only days I didn't hit par, I didn't write for various reasons.
I actually hit the NaNoWriMo goal of 50K words on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I finished the novel on the 29th. It was just under 60,000 words and has 12 chapters. You can read the novel here.
Moonlight (Google Drive) (PDF) (EPUB)
I hope you enjoy it and don't be too critical, I did it because even I had to know the answers to the questions.
