Hey guys. So, this year I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month,
and if you're watching this it's probably already started. Now, I'm not sure if this
is a new tag created for this year, or what, but recently I say MarlinElina do this tag
and watched it, got really excited, and decided to film it for myself.
I have done Camp NaNoWriMo twice and sort of participated in NaNoWriMo last year, but
unfortunately I have yet to complete a story or win any NaNoWriMo that I've participated
in.
Although I really wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo last year, it was right in the middle
of preparations for final exams, so what I did as kind of a compromise was create a really
detailed outline rather than actually write-write my story.
I first found out about NaNoWriMo years and years ago when I believe I was going into
high school, because one of my younger cousins participated as part of a writing class at
school. I remember thinking it was a super cool concept and that I wanted to participate
myself, but unfortunately I didn't really have the time for a lot of personal writing,
so I didn't end up participating until a couple of years ago.
I don't think I had a title for my NaNoWriMo novel last year. I think I called it something
like "Untitled Ninja Fantasy" or something. A fun fact is that I'm actually working on
kind of the same story this year, but I have reoutlined everything, I've actually done
research this year, and I'm super excited about the new direction I'm taking things
in.
This is probably going to be a terrible one sentence summary, but here we go: I'm writing
a fantasy novel set in an alternate historical Japan centering around two siblings who are
orphaned and then adopted into a village, where they eventually start to manifest these
powers that mark them very clearly as outsiders.
Probably the best writing advice I've ever gotten was that it doesn't really matter what
you are writing, as long as you keep writing. So, practice makes perfect. I've really tried
to take that to heart, so every time I write a blog post or a review or a piece of fanfiction,
or an outline for another story. Every time I'm writing one of these things, I try and
make it the best piece of writing that I can so that when I go to write a longer, more
complicated piece of work, like a novel draft, it's easier and I've given myself as much
training as possible.
This is only my third year, I believe, participating in NaNoWriMo, whether that was a Camp or the
actual NaNoWriMo. In that timeframe, no, I have not taken a year off. I almost took this
year off, but then decided that I had no excuses, because I'm not in school for the first time
ever and my work doesn't take up a whole lot of time. So, if I wasn't going to do it this
year, then I should just accept that I was never going to do it.
I don't think I could narrow it down to a single biggest inspiration for deciding what
to write about and that's because I get inspired by a lot of different things. Whether that's
a show or a movie I'm watching, a book I'm reading, a song I'm listening to, or just
being in the world and observing people and interactions around me, I think all of that's
incredibly inspiring. Though I think the story I'm working on this year has kind of a cool
background, because this is actually based on an idea that I first had when I was 14
years old after I watched Princess Mononoke for the first time. I'm 24 this year, so that
means I have been thinking about and revising and revamping this story for about ten years
now, which I realize sounds like major overkill and sounds like a really long time, but it's
just a story that's really stuck with me over the years and I can't wait to write it down
as I see it now in my head.
You guys will have to let me know if you do this as well, but I don't actually write my
stories in a strict linear fashion. I generally start with kind of a broad plot outline of
where I kind of want the novel or story to go and then jump around and fill things in.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that i don't have an actual first sentence of a
story to share with you guys. However, I can share with you the first sentence that I actually
wrote when I started filling in my outline from last year.
"Mother!" Taku watched in horror as the warrior's long sword sank into his mother's back and
reappeared, red and glinting, from her stomach.
So, it's definitely not a warm and cuddly kind of story and that was actually cheating
because that was two sentences and not one.
I love writing for the same reason that I love reading and that's the ability to experience
things outside of my own existence. I haven't gotten to travel a whole lot and I've lived
kind of an average middle-American existence, so when I get to read stories about other
countries or write about crimes that I don't actually solve, or write about fantasy worlds,
it's like getting to explore without ever having to leave my house. But I also really
love getting to create whole new worlds and I could probably take another year just to
world-build and fine tune details for this story. And that's where NaNoWriMo comes in,
because it reminds us that without actually sitting down and putting pen to paper or fingers
to keyboard, there is no actual written out story to share.
So those were my answers to the NaNoWriMo Tag and I hope you guys enjoyed this video.
If you are participating as well, please let me know and I will put my NaNoWriMo link in
the description box just in case you want to be writing buddies. I have my October wrap
up and favorites filmed and I will schedule those to go up but, just a head's up, I will
not be posting other videos in November because I'm really going to try and take NaNoWriMo
seriously this year and focus and get shit done. I have been trying to get a full draft
of something written for so long now and I could normally blame it on school and whatever
craziness I had going on, but this year my life is relatively tame. I don't have a ton
going on, so I'm going to try and be really disciplined and just sit down and not try
to do it, but actually do it. I'm going to be Nike for the month, "Just do it."
And on that note I better go put the final touches on my outline. Thank you so much for
watching. I hope you enjoyed the video, I hope you're having a fantastic day, and I
will see you next time. Bye!