NANO HISTORY
I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo since 2002, which I couldn’t believe until I started compiling a list of my previous projects, all of which have failed. The only one that came close was Timekeeper Part II (2007), but it still only got 18,000 words. Here is a brief rundown of all of my old NaNo novels.
2002: The Holy War (10,793 words)
The Holy War was a story entrenched in an extensive world that I had created, which was all bundled under the name “The Universe Saga.” It was basically a compendium of events from the beginning of the Multiverse to the beginning of the Universe, up until the end of mankind and the eventual breakdown of the Multiverse into a single giant Universe.
Yeah, I know, sounds confusing. I tried to write about about 20 billion years of history, past, present and future. I still have some good stories out of it, the most successful (I think) being The Mediocre Adventures of Mike, which I don’t have linked anywhere anymore because I don’t. Awakenings, the first serialized novel I ever wrote in the forums of Zealot Trivia way back in the late 1990s, also falls into the Universe Saga. It’s that extensive.
The Holy War is set in the future and is about a boy who is the second coming of Christ. But Christ isn’t the son of God, he’s a man from another planet who was attempting to get everyone on Earth to convert to his planet’s religion (which is called Divinity).
Yeah, you can see why I gave up on that one.
2003: Yuso Adoenis and the Key to Everywhere (966 words)
I’m honestly not sure if this really is my NaNo novel, but the file says it was modified in November of 2003 so I can only assume it is. This is another novel set within the Universe Saga, based in the Zealot Galaxy. I could explain to you what that all means but I’d rather not. It was supposed to be about Yuso, a smuggler, and his crew as they go up against a bad guy named Uldarte. Uldarte gains power the happier he is. Previous to the story he was locked up in a prison and pumped full of drugs that made him sad, so he was powerless.
Big ideas, absolutely no time to get them done.
2004: Harold’s Last Straw (2,830 words)
I had just finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and so I had this great idea about writing a story in first person, in the kind of colloquial vernacular that Kesey uses in Cuckoo. This story was about a guy, Harold, who was cryogenically frozen because he was about to die and they thought they could fix him in the future. Well he is unfrozen in the future, fixed up, and he was supposed to meet this guy named Harold who has all these opinions and is kind of crazy, but in a fun, adventurous way. I remember having a dream which made me think of this story idea. I don’t remember what the dream was anymore.
I kinda wish I had continued working on this one. It could’ve been a lot of fun.
2005: The Merach Quiann (1,045 words)
I won’t lie. This idea was totally ripped off from Shadow of the Colossus, a very excellent PS2 game where you try to kill giant things. Unfortunately my idea made a better screenplay (that is, it worked out great in my head) than a novel. It’s about a young boy who lives in a village, and one day the village explodes because a giant creature crawls out of the earth. Everyone in the village is killed except him, and he’s devastated until a man on horseback comes and picks him up. The man claims that the boy must go kill the monster, and they rush off to do the deed. And then some more stuff happens.
It was supposed to be one of those “coming of age mentory” stories but I just didn’t have the energy to put it on paper.
2006: Oliver Treadwell (7,620 words)
Oliver Treadwell is a intergalactic detective who is given the task of finding out why the Universe is becoming “moldy.” It was supposed to be a Hitchhiker’s Guide type of adventure comedy. Oh, hey, I wrote a premise out! Let’s read it:
Premise: A man is given the task of stopping the universe from becoming “moldy.” The mold is going to come from Earth, as the inhabitants there are much too sedentary. He can’t get them to do anything until he is visited by an ambassador of a race of aliens who wish to enslave Earth. He let’s them go down because at least then the Earthlings are doing something. However, during all this he becomes enamored with an Earth girl and tries to get her out when the aliens come. He makes a deal with the aliens to let her go, but she wants to bring her family, etc. The aliens refuse and she is enslaved. So in trying to get her to escape Oliver becomes the head of a group of rebels trying to get rid of the alien enslavers.
So there you go. I think I just ran out of time on this one.
2007: Timekeeper, Part II (18,408 words)
My second biggest success, at least in word count. Timekeeper is about a world where certain crystals control the ebb and flow of time. Mankind has found these crystals and now lives in both space and time. Meaning that you can pick out a house in New York, and you can choose if you want to live in 19th century NY, 18th century NY, etc etc. It’s a cool premise, and I had written out the first part a while ago and was aching to write the second half, so I figured I’d give it a shot during NaNoWriMo.
Only problem is, the first part is already under 50,000 words (it’s like 30,000ish). So as I started writing I realized that if I wanted the two parts to be equal in length, I’d have to cut it short and now beat the 50,000 word mark. This, coupled with school and other things, forced me to stop writing. Plus the narrative got a little confusing, too.
2008: Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves (27,910 words)
As you can see, I’m getting better at keeping my word count high. VZW was a silly idea I had wherein those three monsters all live together in our world and interact with each other. The story actually turned out fairly good, and I still remember the direction in which I wanted to take it. But as with everything else, I got distracted and/or lost my train of thought. So it sits, waiting to be finished.
2009: The Delta Seven (3,149 words)
The Delta Seven was, first, a dismal failure. But it had good intentions. The plot revolved around the Seven, a group of high ranking officials from across the globe, who signed their life away to become cryogenically frozen and shot into space. Their mission is to experience new life and new planets, but what happens is that they land on a planet where one sentient race consumes the other sentient race in a ritualistic sort of way. The consumed race is fully aware of their fate, and is almost content with it. This disturbs one of the Seven, who is not only a vegan but is also incensed by one smart species eating another smart species, and so she begins to change the consumed species’ concept of their lives. They grow to hate their captivity and eventually overthrow the consuming race. Some more happens, but that was the gist. Unfortunately I never got out of the planning stage. I spent more time writing backstory and figuring out how space travel works then I did writing the damn story. Oh well!
2010: VZW
I’m just putting this here for posterity: I tried to continue writing VZW (screw the NaNoWriMo rules!) but didn’t get very far.
And those are my previous NaNoWriMo attempts. I think I’m kind of done with that site, to be honest. I just never have the time in November. I think I’ll just stick with my old ways of writing when I have the time and creative energy. I know that’s not gonna sell books, but eh.