50,000 words in one month (in other words, a full length novel) may seem impossible. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is an event that happens all over the world during the month of November. During this event writers set goals for themselves, the most common one being 50,000 words (1,667 words every day).

I completed NaNoWriMo both the previous times I attempted it, in 2017 (when I wrote Defenders of Lord Havom books 3 and 4, both 25k words long) and in 2018 (Defenders of Lord Havom books 6 and 7). This year, because I am homeschooling and have a more flexible schedule, I set my goal for something I knew I could reach.

I doubled the challenge.

And I met my goal with 100,317 as my final word count.

I started crafting my outline in August and had plenty of time to polish it off before I had to follow it. Every day in November I went to sleep at 8:30pm, set my alarm at 4:55am, got up, and wrote for four hours, reaching the daily goal of 3,334 words every day. With the font size (11) and line spacing (double) I chose, I wrote fifteen pages daily.

So, what exactly was I writing about?

You may remember a post a while back about new maps and a story involving timelines. In November I wrote the first two books in a new series with my very own type of time travel. The first book is titled “Memory from the Ashes” and the second “Freedom in the Wind”. Each book has two main characters, one from the past and one in the present. Below is the “back blurb” telling what Memory from the Ashes is about.

Update: Due to the immense changes in Memory from the Ashes, now titled “Awake, Awoke”, I have scrapped the second book and plan to completely rewrite it.

Old blurb:

Time is a fragile, dangerous thing.

When Yithmora awakes from an eight hundred year coma to discover the world she knew has drastically changed, she sets out to find answers. Accompanied by a student of the Soko Guild, a fox-like creature who swore to protect her, and a dormant memory, it’s a race against the hourglass to return to her home timeline so she can make things right.

Or watch as the world falls to ashes around her.

New blurb:

Healing takes energy and time.

Yithmora is low on both.

She has the ability to heal others, sacrificing part of her lifespan with each cure. And her lifespan is dwindling. When she wakes from an eight hundred year coma and learns she has less than a year to live, she risks losing it all. She must face plague-carrying insects guarding the gateway of time to return home and restore her lifespan. Along the way, she begins to realize how much the future needs her, but her generosity could cost her her life.

Meanwhile, eight hundred years earlier, fifteen-year-old Rin Tathalian is little more than a slave. Afraid of his own mind control capabilities, he must confront his fears to rescue his parents from a greedy general. Surrounded by betrayal, hidden pasts, slavery and war; a string of seemingly random explosions is the least of his concerns.

Timelines merge in unexpected ways, and hard truths must be revealed to clear a path home. For them both.